Whispers in the Dark

Old houses and buildings sometimes become havens for the strange creatures called babblers.  People seldom get a good look at babblers: they're skilled at staying hidden, owing to their ability to contort and flatten their bodies and their chameleon-like power to blend into their surroundings.  What fragmentary descriptions exist suggest they are approximately three to three and a half feet tall and look like a scrawny cross between man, gecko, and frog. They have large, milky yellow eyes and many have strange ruins cut into their skins.

Babblers crawl up from--somewhere--to invade the crawlspaces or basements of buildings. They lurk in vents or even under beds.  From hidden places, the babblers whisper to their human victims.  Their utterances are jibberish--and that gives them their name.

Babblers tones seem to wheedling at first, then plaintive.  When this fails to achieve...whatever it is their after, They may attack in anger.  The cycle may take several nocturnal visitations over as much as a week.

Those that encounter babblers often develop a peculiar aphasia "the Jabber." How the jabber is transmitted is unclear. It may be through the babbler’s bite--certainly most who develop it are bitten--but it has been suggested that only close proximity to a babbler is necessary.  The mechanism is likewise unclear.

Those exposed get a saving throw. Failure means development of an aphasia within 2d6 hours based on the following table:

1-3: anomia - character is unable to remember names either of people or objects (except in general terms).
4-5: fluent aphasia - character is able to speak in a normal manner except that they use the wrong words, and perhaps even nonexistent words.
6-7: receptive aphasia - as above, except the character is also unable to make sense of the speech of others.
8-9: expressive aphasia - character has difficulty producing fluent speech. Words are pronounced with difficulty, in a halting manner, or with odd intonation.
10: global aphasia - The character is either unable to produce speech, repeats single words (perhaps in echo-like manner) or either occasionally shouts a single expletive.

Cure disease or the like will remove the illness, but otherwise it is permanent. in most cases (75% of the time) ability to read and write is preserved.

Babbler: #App.: 1-4, HD: 1, AC 6, Atk: 1 bite or claw (1d4), Special: stick to walls, chameleon skill, transmits "the jabber."

Warlord Wednesday: Dragon Skinner

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 Skinner"

Warlord #104 (April 1986)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Ron Randall

Synopsis: Having reunited with Shakira, Morgan fills her (and the new reader) in on the aging curse that is afflicting his daughter Jennifer and on his quest to find the wizard that he hopes can save her.  Hearing a ruckus, the two go to investigate and find a bunch of guys shooting an orange allosaurus with a ballista.

It seems there’s a market for “dragon” skins as there’s “nothin’ them Kambuka scribes like better than to sheathe their scrolls in supple young dragon skins.”  Sounds vaguely naughty, doesn't it?  Well, Shakira doesn't like it:

One of them runs at her with an axe, but we don’t get to see her swordswomanship as Morgan intervenes with his pistol. After Morgan declines to sell his gun to the leader of the skinners, they slink off with the kills they have.

Morgan’s worried the baby allosaurs will die without their mother, but Shakira clues him on carnosaur parental practices and suggests the father will be a long soon to take care of them.

Meanwhile in Bakwele, Mariah and Machiste (disguised in priestly cloaks) book passage on a ship. The shipmaster, however, catches sight of Machiste’s unpriest-like mace-hand.

Elsewhere, Shakira is taking a dip in a pond while Morgan watches and wonders at why she didn’t say anything about him removing her collar (which she just picked up and put back on).

Morgan’s not the only one watching. The skinners are hiding near by. They think they can get a “king’s ransom in the slave marts of Kalibas” for Shakira.  The skinners get the jump on our heroes and take Morgan’s gun.  They force Shakira to change into cat-form and put her in a little cage.  Then, they shoot Morgan in the head! It looks like a glancing shot, but Morgan is out.  They steal his sword, too and leave him for dead.

Meanwhile, in a mansion in Kiro, the conspirators receive grisly “proof” that Machiste and Mariah are dead: two partially decomposed cadavers pulled from the river.  The ferryman who brought them in receives a bag of coin for his trouble.  As he assures the conspirators he’ll never show his face in Kiro again,the two men nod and smile, knowingly.

Later, the man is celebrating his hoax he pulled off on the two.  He opens the bag to get coin for a prostitute--and instead gets a viper biting him on the neck!

Morgan awakens bereft of weapons.  He pulls the ballista missile from the allosaur carcass, figuring that’s better than nothing.  At that moment, the male in the breeding pair shows up.  Morgan rides away quickly while the beast’s attentions are on his offspring.  Unfortunately, he doesn't get far down the trail before the carnosaur catches up to him.

Morgan’s chased to the edge of the cliff with only the missile to defend himself. The cliff gives way beneath them and man and dinosaur fall--but Morgan’s able to catch a hanging branch. The dinosaur lives, but it will take him awhile to climb out.

In the camp of the skinners, two of the gang decide to steal Morgan’s gun from the sleeping leader. The leader is not as asleep as he seems. He blows the two away. Morgan hears the sound and rides up on them. He punches the guy out and takes the gun. The leader tries to save his miserable life by buying Morgan off with the allosaurus tooth he wears around his neck. Then, he hears a roar behind him.  

The daddy allosaur is here! Morgan turns to shoot it:
 

The dinosaur charges--right past Morgan. It snatches up the leader of the skinners in its jaws. Morgan frees Shakira from the cage. He’s worried the allosaurus will charge them next, but the beast doesn’t.  He just stands and watches the two humans leave. Shakira hypothesizes that the dinosaur understands they never meant him or his mate any harm.  Morgan is skeptical...

Things to Notice:

• Again we see dinosaurs in the most prevalent Skartarian shade: orange.
• Since when does Shakira wear or use a sword?
• Apparently prostitutes in Kiro wear almost 19th century style undergarments.

Where it Comes From:
The dragon skinners in this episode are clearly meant to evoke the buffalo hunters of the American Old West.

Typhoid Mary

“Typhoid Mary” is one of the names given to women (typically young, and in unassuming professions) who become avatars for ancient and dread eikones, spirits of plague and contagion. These spirits are too old to have a voice of their own, and only the most deranged and saddest of cultists ever engage in their worship, but through a Typhoid Mary they still can let their presence be know.

Typically an avatar-to-be contracts some sort of dire infectious disease herself but for reasons unknown doesn't die.  The plague spirits transform her to a carrier instead. The illness that created her is not the only one a Typhoid Mary may spread; Through her life she may acquire more infections over time.

At the start, most Typhoid Marys are victims, as well.  Over time, the ancient whispers of the plague spirits and the horror of their existence takes its toll on their minds. They often become either willing accomplices or insane in their denial of truth of their existence.

Typhoid Marys are typically normal women other their ability to cause contagion (as per the spell with save at -2, except that a Mary need not touch someone to spread the contagion. If she wishes it, close proximity for a short time is enough.) and perhaps unusually hard to kill. An avatar who has fully embraced her role might exhibit healing, resistances, and immunities similar to a vampire.

In the Loop

I caught Looper this weekend. It’s a time travel flick from Rian Johnson.  It reminds me the most of things like 12 Monkeys (and by extension  La jetée). While it’s not as interesting or innovative as Johnson’s high school hardboiled detective story, Brick, Looper has it’s own unique angle with its evocation of the dystopian future where criminals use time travel just for hits.

Closer to home, in a nearby but shadowy corner of the blogosphere, Jack Shear has released the second volume of Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque (which he subtitles Expert Grotesques and Dungeonesques). Like the first, this volume compiles some excellent posts from Jack’s blog and some new material. He has some neat stuff from his own setting The Worlds Between and also some tools to help evoke the gothic touch in any setting.  Check out the pdf for free and get your hardcopy on Lulu.

Monster Party!

As Halloween approaches, I'm thinking about again doing some monster meditations posts.  Since it has been a year since I did one of those, I thought they might be worth revisiting the past installments:

In 2010:
Famous Monsters: Frankenstein: A monster named Adam in all his glory.
Famous Monsters: The Mummy: An ancient monster gets unwrapped.
Gill -Man vs. the Wolf-Man: The more bestial Universal monsters go toe to toe.

In 2011, I just did one:

Two-Fisted Monsters: takes a look at pulpy portrayals, lighter on the horror.

Battle in the Skies!

In last night's thrilling installment of our WaRP Weird Adventures campaign, Boris, Diabolico, and Cornelius Doyle engaged the enemy more directly than they had before.  When setting the surface of Greasy Lake ablaze (with a flare gun!) failed to scare up anything, the gang went to meet with Hew Hazzard at Zephyrus Aerocraft to tell him one of his engineers was working with a dangerous group involved with the so-called Machineries of Night.

Hazzard had heard of those.  It seems a group of adventures had fought them years ago to save Hardluck from being subsumed into the Machine.  He was shocked to find out his trusted employee Silas Atwill might be working with them (or it?). 

They went to confront Atwill and found him trying to make an escape out the window. One of the flying automata seemed to be coming to get him. The cloaked and masked being he called "the Master" was with it!  When the gang stopped Atwill's escape, the Master just disintegrated him with a a blast from a weird rod.

The automata and the Master flew off. Hazzard and the gang gave chase in an experimental autogyro-bladed airship.  What followed was a pitch battle with two other automata in midair.  Bullets were flying and the automata were trying to destroy the rotors and bring the craft down.

Ultimately, the gang destroyed both automata (with a lot of shots fired) and Hazzard was able to land the damaged craft safely. 

The mysterious Master, however, got away.

Warlord Wednesday

Computer issues have delayed my review of Warlord #104.  How's the issue's splash page as a teaser, though:

Also, for the rpg interested among you (which I assume is most of you), take a peep at these Warlord stats in the old Marvel Superheroes FASERIP system. For another view, this site has his stats in Mayfair's DC Heroes system.

Back next week!