Beneath the Planet of the Elves

Every elf or dwarf is aware of the horrors that lurk in the underground ruins of the long dead race of Man: crawling things with superstitiously shunned names, lurching things with nigh unpronounceable names, and oozing things left fearfully unnamed. But none of those evoke more horror than the Cult of the Dread God.

The cultists are utterly subterranean, emerging only briefly at night.  They resemble elves or dwarves, for the most part, except that they are taller and their features (when they are seen) are coarse and with an unhealthy waxiness.  They all dress in the vestments of their order and reveal little more than their faces.

The cultists possess powers of the mind allowing them to stun or control even the most strongly willed elf or dwarf.  They march their victims, puppet-like to their own sacrifice--for that is what the cultists seek when they emerge from their underground temples or monasteries.  Little is known of their hungry god other than his name--which is not commonly spoken for fear of drawing his attention--and that name is Ba’am. No elf has seem the god or his altar and lived.

There are adventurers' tales that suggest their waxy countenances are not the true faces of the cultists, but merely masks.  Whatever they were before, their god has changed them in strange ways. Tales speak of glimpses of bruise-colored tendrils writhing beneath their masks and uncovered heads, hairless and rugous, pulsing with malevolent intelligence.

Warlord Wednesday: Evil in Ebony

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...

"Evil in Ebony"

Warlord #92 (April 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art by Pablo Marcos.

Synopsis: An Atlantean scouting party returns to Shamballah through the forest of Ebondar. Their arrogance at their control of the area makes them an easy target for an ambush by the Warlord and his band. Morgan plans to do some scouting of his own within Atltantean-controlled Shamballah and needs this party’s livery to pull it off.

Meanwhile, underneath Fire Mountain, Jennifer continues to study the Evil One’s artifacts and tells Tinder about her previous encounter with him. The Evil One can’t de destroyed forever, but has been disembodied. He can only return if he can possess another physical form.

While Jennifer is talking, Tinder has been staring into the Evil One’s gem:

Jennifer is able to sever the link with her magic before the Evil One can take him over fully. She locks the gem up so it can’t be any more trouble—she hopes.

Back at Shamballah’s gates, Morgan and Krystovar, dressed as Atlantean soldiers, manage to bluff their way inside. Morgan sees a couple of soldiers stealing from a street peddler and intervenes. He cuts the fingers off one guy’s hand as he tries to take a piece of fruit. Morgan and Krystovar share a tense exchange of glances when the healer insists on tending the wounds of the soldier Morgan maimed.

Looking around, Morgan notes the placement of the defenses around the walls—particularly the energy cannons. He sends Shakira out in cat form on a special scouting mission. Easily completing the mission, she runs into a snag on the way to the rendezvous when a sadistic Atlantean decides to sick his lizard dogs on her. He loses sight of the animals in the chase, but when he catches up to his dogs they’re both dead!

Unbeknownst to Shakira or her antagonists, the old witch, Saaba, has watched these events unfold and now follows the cat with interest.

In Hunker’s Tavern, Krystovar and Morgan are arguing over their differing ideas about mercy toward their enemy. The debate is cut short when Shakira arrives and suggests they get out of Shamballah while they can. The three ride out of town, unaware that Saaba (in crow form) is following them.

They haven’t gone for before she uses her magic to cause trouble:

Morgan and Krystovar manage to stay out of the earth elemental's reach long enough to scramble up a hill and dislodge a boulder. This causes an avalanche to bury the creature. Our three heroes head back to their camp—but not before inadvertently allowing Saaba to overhear their plans for a two pronged attack on Shamballah using the underground tunnel they had used to escape the siege.

Saaba flies back to Shamballah to inform Lord Sabretooth of the Warlord’s strategy.

Things to Notice:

• Saaba the witch again rears her ugly head. She was last seen in issue #84.
• Morgan so dislikes Kystovar's compassion that he almost starts a fight over it.

Where It Comes From:
This is issue is mostly build-up for bad things to come for our protagonists.

The earth elemental that appears in this issue owes more to Dungeons & Dragons than to Paracelsus's conception.

The Room at the End of the Hall

An ominous door at the end of a hall in a cheap tenament somewhere in the City.  We step over the drunk sleep it off outside.  Behind the door we find:

1. Two sets of men's clothes in puddles of goo.
2. A roiling red-tinged fog that seems to pulsate as if with the beating of a heart.
3. A well-dressed man from nowhere.
4. Walls bear but for peeling paint.  The faint sound of a child sobbing.
5. A group of 1d6 hobogoblins gathered around table watching two men play Russian roulette.
6. A single bed with a large constrictor snake curled upon it with a ominous bulge.
7. Smears of blood on the floor; a naked hanging lightbulb swinging, as if recently disturbed.
8. A nest of bugbear hatchlings and their strange birthing machinery.
9. A hillybilly giantess in a gingham dress sitting on a bed and sobbing into her hands.
10. The grim reaper seated at a table with a chess board.
11. The complete skin of an elderly man draped across a bed as if in repose.
12. Pulp magazines stacked almost ceiling high and forming a veritable maze.

Other ideas?

Reskinned!

The usual D&D races getting a little stale? Just give them a makeover and keep the old mechanics.  Try these knew visuals on for size:

For Elves:

Insect(-ish) men.

For Halflings:

Satyr-like guys.

For Half-Orcs:

Hairy hominids.

For Warforged:

Spaceknights!

Okay, that last one may be a bit of a stretch.

Planet of the Elves

In elven village and dwarven hamlet, elders warn children of the dangers of venturing too far into the wilderness.  Out there in the wastes, the well-worn admonitions say, lie half-buried ruins--the blasted and timeworn remnant of a world that was.

Reckless youths and greedy treasure-seekers have long ignore the warnings of their mothers and fathers. They brave the wilds to seek out these ruins, where tribes of giant Hairy Ones and worse things hunger for elf (and dwarf) flesh, and they delve into subterranean depths where baroquely insane wizards give flesh to monsters out of nightmare.

Many of these foolhardy adventurers don’t return home.  The skillful and lucky ones that do win glory as well as treasure.  They become heroes--for the wise amongst their peoples well know that every  bit of forgotten knowledge or ancient artifice brought up from underground brings their races closer to wresting the world from the grip of Man’s long ago folly.

The Kind of Dame Gargoyles Like

In the City, Creskin, Don Diabolico, and Boris (now calling themselves--somewhat prematurely--Team Victory) had dinner at the posh “Pauper’s Row” mansion of Urania Vandemaur. They discovered the Vandemaur matriarch most certainly does not approve of the cigarette-girl from across the Eldritch River that her son, John, chose to marry. In fact, she’s certain Viviane killed her son--and is willing to pay to have her brought to justice by any means necessary.

Never ones to blanch from suggestions of illegal deeds where money’s involved, our heroes take her up on her offer. They also take note of a tidbit dropped by Urania--insignificant to her, but very significant to our would-be detectives: John Vandemaur had remarked that "even gargoyles loved" Viviane.

A late night meeting with a shady forensic necromancer confirms the skinned body they found was indeed John Vandemaur and that he may have been betrayed by someone he called “darling.” His traumatized soul can’t give them anymore, but that’s enough.

The boys are eager to confront Viviane, but she won’t see them until tomorrow. They try to use the map they took from Bliss’s extradimensional bolt-hole to find more clues, but without a lot of success. Finally, they're able to use the second glass sphere to contact Bliss, and he offers a meeting back at Club Tekeli-Li.

One exorbitant cab ride later, they’re attempting to interrogate Bliss at the club. He wants the spheres back, but our heroes won’t budge. They manage to get Bliss to give up quite a bit: He was Faustus Bleys--and the inhuman being that calls itself Viviane Vandemaur was Bleys’s scribe mentioned in the tome. Viviane double-crossed Bliss for obscure reasons and put him in the coffin. He also claims she killed John Vandemaur. Still, Viviane’s motives remain a mystery. Why did she hire them? Was it just to get them out of the way as Bliss claims? And what’s the true purpose of the spheres? Bliss wants one badly (the one they stole from him), as he says it allows him to open “certain doors.”

Our heroes meeting with Viviane will likely turn into a battle--against an inhuman killer.

This adventure also marked the debut of Creskin’s new henchman (courtesy of Fleischschild’s Institute in Lichmond): cornfed and none too bright, Moose Magoon:

 

Creskin plans to put him in a sequined outfit as a stage assistant, too.

Warlord Wednesday: Reminiscing

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...

"Reminiscing"

Warlord #91 (March 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art by Dan Jurgens.

Synopsis: Morgan, Tara, and their friends decide to head back to the Valley of the Lion to check on the refugees they left encamped there. The villagers around Shaban D’Aba told them about a bridge across a ravine that will greatly shorten their journey.

When they arrive at the bridge, they find it guarded by a giant warrior, who demands they send out a challenger to fight him. On the other side of the ravine, he displays the heads of the challengers he’s defeated. He claims he ate their bodies. Morgan’s response:

As he steps out unto the bridge to meet the giant, Morgan remembers another bully he face before: Danny Maddox, the scourge of Thomas Jefferson Junior High. Morgan stood up to Maddox to protect his friend Chuck. He beat Maddox—just like he beats the giant now. That long ago battle was when he met his first love—Rachel, who would be his wife.

Morgan is lost in the past for a moment before his friends summon him back to the present. Together, they cross the bridge.

In the Valley of the Lion, Ashir interrupts Jennifer Morgan’s study of the gem she got from the sanctum of the Evil One. Discussing the refugee camp, Jennifer mentions “Robin Hood”—a reference Ashir doesn’t get, but a stray thought that reminds Jennifer of her childhood.

She recalls the adventure stories her father read to her, the death of her mother, and the years she believed her father to be dead. Then she found her father alive, in a magical world, living out his fantasies of adventure. She sheds a tear.

Leagues away in Bakwele, the ninja-like Vashek assassins torture one of Patch’s crew for information about the Warlord. The man tells them that Morgan is working for Captain Hawk. The pirate will be their next target.

In his spherical spacecraft, the Monitor reviews some of his history tapes. This helpfully summarizes the history of Skartaris and Morgan’s advent in that world for the new reader.

In the Valley of the Lion, Tinder sees Tara arrive with what he thinks is his talisman on her arm. Tara sees the boy looking at her jewelry and recalls how she met Morgan and they fell in love. He gave her armband—really his wrist-watch—and she later gave it to their infant son Joshua as a toy. Tara believes Joshua to be dead. She has no idea that the young boy that seems so interested in her armband is actually Joshua, but with no knowledge of his true parentage.

Things to Notice:

• Again we get an appearance by the Monitor. This was done in most DC Comics as a lead up to Crisis on Infinite Earths.  His appearance here also serves as a good reason for an origin recap.
• This isn't the last we'll hear of Danny Maddox, Travis Morgan's school-age nemesis.
• This is the first appearance of the Vashek assassins, too.

Where It Comes From:
Most of this issue summarizes events we've seen before, most notably from Warlord's first appearance in First Issue Special #8.  Jennifer's memories of her life after her mother's death and then her father's disappearance were referred to in dialogue, but depicted here for the first time.