Methods of Magic: Dreadstar

I’ve been thinking about how magic is portrayed in works in various media and how there might be some tidbits that could enliven rpg magic.  I’ve delved in the broad strokes of different portrayals of magic before, but now I think I’ll look at some specific cases.  First up, Dreadstar.

Dreadstar is Jim Starlin’s comic book space opera about a group of super-powered rebels fighting the galactic theocracy, the Instrumentality. It’s got aliens, robots, psionic powers--and magic. Like in Empire of the Petal Throne (and the real world for much of history), magic in Dreadstar seems the province of people in special clerical orders which study and communicate with the gods of the Instrumentality and related supernatural forces. One of these groups (or perhaps the sole group) is named as the Order of Vieltoor. There are renegade or “infidel” sorcerers, but the only two we see in the series are unsual (one is the offspring of a human woman and a demon).

In the origin of Dreadstar’s sorcerous protagonist, Syzygy Darklock, we see him summoning a demon in usual ritual magic fashion. In the process, we are told that planes of reality exist, which are less adventuring places than metaphysical ones, and are depicted in a vaguely Ditko-ish manner.  We are told the gods store their power on “the eleventh level of reality.”

At the end of that story, Syzygy is said to have gained power perhaps equal to one of the Instrumentaility’s gods, which (if not hyperbole) is interesting given that he appears superhuman but can be knocked out by things that would kill a normal human.

While spells are spoken of (and named) in Dreadstar, they mostly seem to fall into the “magic as energy manipulation” territory. Spells appear to be patterns of energy that adepts can recognize, not formula. Perhaps there are mental algorithms associated with spells. We only see hand gestures, never incantations (except with rituals).

The most commonly utilized spell is the mystic bolt. This seems to come in degrees of strength from just injuring/damaging to disintegration. Flight and levitation appear nearly effortless--at least to the super-powerful Syzygy. Circular magical shields (which can shatter when hit with sufficient force) are frequently used--at one point a guy projects small versions of these from his eye! Cubic or spherical area shields seem to require more effort. Sufficiently powerful adepts are able to feel magical power in others like jedi sensing the force. Syzgy at least is able to quick open portals to places where tentacled things dwell.

There are limits to magical power. Expending too much can strain the sorcerer physically and cause him to lose consciousness. Things that significantly disrupt concentration (“hypersonic” beam directed into the skull) prevent the use of spells.

Overall, magic in Dreadstar shows its comic book origins. It bears a greater resemblance to sorcery in Doctor Strange than in literary fantasy. It's probably most easily modeled in a rpg system that accommodates superhero powers.

The Game is (Almost) Afoot!

With two Weird Adventures games about to kick off (one face-to-face with WaRP, and the other with Lorefinder on Google+), there are few rumors and events in the City that might be of interest to one or the other groups of players:

Cyrus Westerly died 10 years ago, but in accordance with his wishes, his estate has yet to be settled. Westerly’s lawyer and executor, Rothger Croston, has summoned the five potential heirs to the remote and decaying Westerly Mansion on the Eldritch, north of the City. It’s rumored the will has some eccentric provisions.

Barton Blanchefleur, Hell Syndicate “made man” and notorious germophobe, has got a new moll that fits his usual all-white wardrobe: a young dame with white hair.

Millionaire thaumaturgist, Charles Ranulf Urst, passed away a couple of months ago, and no one has yet to enter his mansion--everybody’s too afraid of magical traps. Interestingly, his lawyers (Shreck and Wail) have recently been seen in the City taking private meetings with adventurer types.

Terror Birds

Giant birds show up pretty frequently in fantasy art. The phorusrhacos and diatryma represent the group in game products, and are joined by fictional giant fightless birds. Check out this size comparison chart, though.  There's a whole untapped range of them:

Check out the size of the beak on Kelenken there.  It's the largest beak on any known bird.  An adventurer killing beak.

Now, all of those guys are sort of the usual suspect flightless carnivores. There's also the extinct Kairuku penguin which stood over 4 feet tall. 

700 posts and a hobgoblin

Some elves and dwarves fail to learn the lesson of the doom of Man and seek knowledge and power at any cost. Hobgoblins are the twisted remnant of elvish or dwarvish mages who were corrupted by their contact with the Outer Dark, bartering their souls either all at once or piecemeal, until they were transformed into something more--and less--than what they had been.

HOBGOBLIN
AC: 2 or better
HD: 5+
Attacks: claw (1d6)
Special: spells (as Magic-User of level equal to hit dice); chilling laugh (causes paralysis with fear in beings 4HD or below on failed saving throw)

Hobgoblins have lairs in creepy locales, dark plots and sinister henchmen (villainous elves or dwarves, cyborg monstrosities, demons, or umber hulks are possibilities). All hobgoblins are mad to one degree or another (feel free to roll on a Palladium rpg insanity table or the like). Sometimes their madness dilutes their evil purpose, but it also increases their unpredictability.

If brought to zero hit points, hobgoblins will often explode--messily.  They will reform by the next new moon unless their soul is found and destroyed.  Their souls are always kept hidden but generally close by.  They have the appearance of insects or other crawling things molded from congealed shadow--inky black, confection-sticky,and unpleasant in texture. These souls can be destroyed by fire or magic, but possessing one affords a means to leverage a hobgoblin to do the possessors bidding.


And that's 700 posts, folks.Thanks for reading!

Warlord Wednesday: Dragon Doom

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...

"Dragon Doom"

Warlord #95 (July 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art by Adam Kubert.

Synopsis: At the end of last issue, Morgan and Shakira were caught between a cliff overlooking a waterfall and a band of Vashek assassins! An assassin jumps from above and accidentally knocks them all over the edge.  They plunge into the deep water below.  Only Morgan and Shakira come up.

As soon as they’re back on dry land, Morgan is off after Hawk.  The pirate drugged them and took off with the Princess Hooranami and her slave—and also stole Morgan’s helmet.  The two come across a dead tyrannosaur, which puzzles Morgan because he wonders what could have killed it.  There are cloven-hoofed tracks around it of unknown origin.  They don’t have too long to consider this mystery as a hungry pack of hyenadons show up, making a hasty exit wise.

Far away in the Shamballan camp, Ashir is looking for Tinder, whom he suspects of stealing his lockpick. When Jennifer tells him that the Evil One’s gem has been stolen from the locked chest, they’re both certain that Tinder is possessed by that ancient evil.

Back on the island, Hawk is walking along, bantering with the haughty princess, when Morgan’s helmet is lifted off his head. He looks up to find Morgan pointing a sword right at his eye. Morgan figures it’s high time the two had that duel to see who’s the better swordsman, but…

The odds aren’t in our heroes’ favor, though. The Vasheks are too numerous. Unfortunately, the princess and her old slave are too slow and would get caught if they tried to run for it.  There are no good options.

A horn sounds. The cavalry arrives—literally.

The Vasheks are tough, but in the end they’re outmatched. As soon as the battles over, the princess tells the knights that Morgan and crew kidnapped her from the palace. Luckily, Odanak backs up the true story. Khord, leader of the knights, decides to take them all to Lord Kaldustan, Hooranami’s father.

Kaldustan knows his daughter well.  He proclaims Morgan and the others honored guests and offers them great rewards. He offers Hawk and Morgan both a pair of tricorns. When Hawk refuses (he wants money), he gives both pairs to Morgan, and lets Hawk take some diamonds from the treasure room.

Morgan tells Kaldustan of the war he’s fighting. The island lord is willing to help, but the sea monster traps them on the island. Morgan offers to kill it in exchange for the help of Kaldustan and his knights.

But how to kill it? It has scales too tough for any blade. Morgan’s got a plan.  He builds a giant crossbow that can be mounted on a ship and constructs a giant bolt with a diamond point to shoot from it.

The promise of more riches gets him Hawks help, and the two sail out to slay the monster. All doesn’t go as planned when it comes up behind them and smashes the crossbow with its tail.

Morgan will have to improvise. He snatches up the diamond-headed spear…

Kaldustan gives them more diamonds in gratitude and pledges his support of Morgan’s cause.

Morgan makes the exchange with Hawk for the former slaves.  As the pirate captain sails away, Shakira notices he’s stolen of the chest of diamonds Kaldustan gave Morgan.

Things to Notice:

• Everyone one but Hooronami and Odanak seem stereotypic comic book golden-skinned Asians. Why are those two different?
• The island is pretty large to be unknown to mainland Skartarians.  It certainly has quite a bit of megafauna on it.

Where It Comes From:
The tricorns have goat-like cloven hooves and goatees like the classical image of the unicorn.

The cultural of the island is clearly intended to reflect cultures of East Asia. It's the first time we've seen this in the Warlord saga. The names (with a few exceptions) don't tend to go along with the Chinese/Japanese mashup of the material culture.

The Slime Emotional Spectrum

If power rings can come full spectrum, so can slimes.  Let's run the list:

Red: The color of blood, these slimes are drawn to violence or displays of anger. They show up just after battles to absorb victor and victim alike. As they dissolve prey, their color deepens.
Orange: In some ways, these slimes (which have the look and consistency of pulped oranges) are the most sinister. Drawn to cheerful moods, they wait to take adventurers leaving dungeons after successful delves. Chemicals in their substance cause uncontrollable laughter in those they attack.
Yellow: Timid in their movements, these slimes feed off cowardice and fear. Fleeing adventures or monsters will draw their attention.
Green: Greed and avarice bring this species oozing out of the darkness. They tend to lie in wait around treasure troves.
Blue: Sadness and depression are the lures for these. They tend to try to trap creatures in a room for which there is no escape. They move in slowly, seeming to savior the despair as it builds.
Indigo: More rarefied in their appetites than others (if a slime can be said to be rarifed) these slime seek to absorb magic-users and others seeking transcedence through knowledge. Magic tomes and ancient inscriptions draw them. They may wait quiescent for years for a victim in the right mindset.
Violet: These slime do something positive on their own perverse way.  As they flow over victims they bring calm and soothe negative emotions.  This is no doubt a solace to the person so consumed.

WaRPed D&D

Getting ready for this afternoon's Weird Adventures game using the WaRP system (the OGL rules set derived from Over the Edge, just in case you haven't heard) got me to thinking about how WaRP and D&D could be hybridized, at least partially. Why would anyone want to? Well, because they're there.  More seriously, because I wonder if D&D with a more freeform style character creation system would still work pretty much like D&D?

And I saw somebody do it with Tunnels & Trolls, which gave me the initial idea.

Anyway, characters in WaRP are defined by three traits and a flaw.One of these traits is a central trait (i.e.more central to the character concept), and the other two are side traits. These are freeform and player-defined with GM input. These traits are all related to dice pools, where their rating is the number of dice used.

You could adapt this to D&D by having the central trait be character class (or race/class, if you like). You could do these strictly D&D , so player's just choose from a list, or freeform (within reason) defining new classes would be relatively easy, so long as their abilities could be analogized to old classes. Now, instead of dice pools, for D&D you would just use bonuses.  Maybe the central trait isn't associated with a bonus, or maybe it gives a +1 to abilities related to your class (to hit for fighter, spell slot for magic-users, rolling for some thief-y thing for thieves--whatever).

The side traits could handle special character defining abilities, but could also take the place of ability scores. Ability scoreless D&D has been discussed before since they don't do much in OD&D besides (at best) provide a bonus for a limited number of specific situations. You could define these two side traits as one for "physical" and one for "psychic/social." So a player could be "strong" or "quick" for the former and "learned" or "natural leader" for the latter with an associated bonus (+1, +2, or whatever depending on the edition of D&D your working with). Of course, they could stay completely open too. Any ability coming into play where one didn't have a bonus from a trait would just be the equivalent of an average, bonusless "10."

Flaws would work like the side trait except in reverse: "clumsy"or "frail," for instance.  Or, it could be a freeform trait.

Random generation of characters is part of what a lot of people enjoy about D&D, but you could do that here, too.  Just make a chart of side traits with appropriate bonuses, and flaws with appropriate penalties, and have the players' role.