Catch Up on the Strange Stars

Work is getting in the way again, but in lieu of a new post, I'll point you to the newly updated Strange Stars Index Page so you can catch up on what you might have missed.

I hope to have some original Strange Stars artwork by Jez Gordon to show you in the (hopefully) not too distant future, so stay tuned.

Warlord Wednesday: The Death-Knell of the Universe

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...

"The Death-Knell of the Universe: Chapter I: Where Dwells the Grim God"

Warlord #133 (Winter 1988)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Pencils by Jan Duursema, Inks by Tom Mandrake

Synopsis: Morgan and Aoife are riding with Ishum on his winged mount, on their way to try to steal Ishum’s horn back from Yk’Kphat to try to prevent to end of the cosmos. They happen to pass over angry blob creatures chasing a man. They swoop down and carry him to safety.

It turns out he stole a jewel from the angry blob. He’s Guernon Darkmoon and he claims to be a master thief.

Meanwhile, the god worm Anu winds his way through the cosmos, passing near the Ebondar forest and dropping alien monsters on Skartaris. Luckily, there are heroes to try to protect the people:

In the god realm of Yk’Kphat, Tara is trapped in a pearl around the fat god’s neck as he “fondles” the horn of being. When he tires of playing with it, he has slaves put it back in storage.

Jennifer figures their straights are so desperate she’s got to find allies—even unsavory ones who will exact a price for their services:

Morgan and crew sneak into Yk’Kphat’s palace. Aoife know’s Tara is on one of the god-thing’s pearls, but she has been dithering about telling him because she’s a little sweet on him. She starts to tell him, but then Darkmoon calls her away to help him snag the horn. Morgan and Ishum fly out to keep Yk’kphat occupied.

It turns out Yk’kphat can produce demonic creatures just from his breath!

Darkmoon proves his skill by picking the lock on the god’s treasure room. As soon as they have the horn, a snake-like monster emerges from the mounds of gold to attack. It grabs Darkmoon in its jaws. Aoife means to fight it, but Darkmoon tells her to leave him and get the horn away. Reluctantly, she does.

She arrives in the main chamber just in time to tell Morgan that Tara is in one of the jewels. Ishum tells Morgan they should shatter them all to free the warriors trapped within. Morgan and Tara are reunited, but the ethereal portal they came in is closing, and Yk’kphat has just exhaled a horde of dragons.

It’s Aoife’s turn to sacrifice herself for the common good:

In Skartaris, the force’s of Jennifer’s netherworldly allies are proving ineffectual against halting Anu’s undulations. The assessment of their leaders:

TO BE CONTINUED

Things to Notice:

• This is the last issue of Warlord.
• The letter page announces the end of the series and points out that it was the only comic started by Marvel or DC launched after 1970 to still be published in 1988 [presumably Greenberger means series launched around new characters].

Living Fast

Art by Gregory Manchess

Quicklings are a clade found on numerous worlds in the Strange Stars outside the control of the hegemonic powers. They bear some resemblance to the fairies from the legends of Old Earth: they are approximately 8 cm tall humanoids with insect-like wings. They are actually bioroids (sapient despite their small size) who get their name from their short lifespans and their faster neural "clockspeed."

Quickling tribes or collectives live geographically close (even within) cities and habitats of other humanoids, but live apart due to the difficulty of interaction. Quicklings find other humanoids unbearably slow, while neural baselines have to use special devices for all but the most rudimentary communication. Quickling tribes can be hired for various purposes, and they care little for legalities, but given their attention spans, all plans must be relatively simple.

Their small size and necessarily low weights (for flight) mean their brains must be made of nonbiologic materials. Even still, they are less intelligent than the average baseline (Int 8). However, groups of quicklings form a partial neural composition and have some sharing of of cognition, so the more quicklings in close proximity, the smarter they are (+1 for every 2 additional quicklings, max. 20).

Art by Aaron Sidall

No. Appearing: 2-20 (up to 300 in swarm)
AC: 0
HD: 1-2 HP
Saving Throw: 16
Attack Bonus: +4
Damage: 1 point
Movement: 40’ fly
Morale: 8
Special Abilities: Quicklings move so quickly they appear as blur to unenhanced baselines. Attacks against them have a 20% chance to miss (roll before attack roll). Quicklings are never surprised by unenhanced individuals and always roll for initiative as normal, no matter the circumstance.

Remember the Titans

The Olympians wrested control of the Cosmos from its creators (and theirs), beings known as Titans. Though the name is often used for all pre-Olympian entities of power, it most accurately refers to the children/creations of the Primoridals (noumenal beings born from Chaos) Ouranos and Gaea. For reasons not fully known to anyone but himself, the titan Kronos sought to create a more permanent world of matter and time, something less mutable than the idea-space where the titans existed. Eleven of his peers were either dupes or co-conspirators in the creation.

The Titans were lessened by their participation in the Cosmos project. They were forced to embody and support fixed aspects of the architecture of Kronos's world: They entered as creators but became as much prisoners as those that came after them.

In the end, the dimunition and split attention forced upon them in the Cosmos led to their undoing. The much weaker Olympians and their allies were able to exploit flaws and weaknesses in the universe that the titans had been blinded to by their perspective. Those that opposed the Olympians' coup were imprisoned in the extradimensional realm within Tartarus.

The titans avatars (only a part of their vastness can be seen, even in their diminished state within the Cosmos) appear as humanoid giants. Their primary self-nodes often reside at other places in the universe: for instance, Hyperion's intellect resides in a quantum collective constructed in the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, while Theia's is distributed in the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula.

Meet the Olympians

The Olympians are alien beings of great power and advanced technology worshipped by humans under a variety of different names. A group of them staged a coup against their creators/forebearers, the alien god-monsters called titans, and imprisoned those that did bow to their rule in the extradimensional prison, Tartarus.

While generally humanoid in appearance, Olympians were engineered with capabilities beyound those of earthly humanity and have a much greater resistance to damage and injory. Their technology also allows them to project the illusions and even to modify their physical forms. Olympians appear to be inter-fertile with humans, though this may be accomplished by their science. 

Olympians spend much of their time in a flying city shrouded in clouds. It can sometimes be found above Mount Olympos, but it isn’t limited to that location. Olympian theoretically allows surveillance of virtually anywhere in the world, though they seldom are paying attention to the information gathered.

Powers: All Olympians possess the equivalent of the Mutant Future powers of Regenerative Aility, and Ability Boost.They possess other abilities on an individual basis.

Technology: Using simply the capabilites of their home on Olympos they can access its library databanks for a vast array of information, communication with their fellow Olympians anywhere in the world, or teleport at will.

Fourth of July Freak Out

On this Independence Day, you can do worse than kick back with a beer, watching a cult or trashy movie (I'd suggest Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill, Harley Davidson and the Malboro Man, or Rolling Thunder) and ordering your copy of Jack Shear's psychotronic, post-apocalyptic Americana rpg setting Planet Motherf*cker. Freakout is optional.

Here's a mix of musical moods to get you in the right frame of mind:

"Psychobilly Freakout" by the Reverend Horton Heat:

"White Lightning" by Charles Bernstein: 

"Chase the Devil" The Eagles of Death Metal:

"Comanche" The Revels:

"Too Drunk to..." Nouvelle Vague:

Warlord Wednesday: The Worm of Heaven and Hell

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...

"The Worm of Heaven and Hell"

Warlord #132 (November 1988)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Jan Duursema

Synopsis: Khnathaiti rides a tentacle worm creature, Sesanaga the Lava-Serpent, and bids it to sing out so that its weirdling song can be magnified by the mystic “doom-crystal” and rouse Anu from the God-Plane to ravage the multiverse.

Another, even more huge tentacle worm-thing erupts through the ground in Skartaris near Morgan and Aoife. It writhes and reaches toward the sky and where it pierces it, alien beings and fragments of their worlds fall through. One of them is crying out in pain, part of his body fused into a piece of rock. Morgan reluctant thinks of drawing his pistol and putting the alien out of his misery. He’s beaten to it:

Aoife is futilely striking at the worm with her sword. She gets a vision of a future where everything was turned to stone. The vision worries the starfish-headed alien who flies up and uses his power to close the riff in the sky left by the worm's passing. He fears it will do little good if the cosmos ends.

Meanwhile, Jennifer has magically summoned Shakira to Shamballah. She hopes to enlist her aid in finding Morgan. She’s overheard some of the spells Khnathaiti was casting:

A serpent-haired Khnathaiti head emerges from the pages of the book to attack. Jennifer beats it back with her magic, but unfortunately destroys the book that might have helped in the process.

Elsewhere, Morgan sleep,s and the spirit of Tara tries to make contact with him, to warn him of Khnathaiti’s plan. Before she can, the sorceress shows up and banishes her. Morgan wakes up with a start to find himself alone.

In her lair, Khnathaiti barters Tara’s troublesome soul to extra-dimensional merchant. She’s led off in a coffle:

Starfish fills Aoife and Morgan in on a lot of cosmology. His name is Ishum, and before the advent of the cosmos, the great god Ea bade him sound his horn and summon the great worm Anu from the void. Anu’s writhing and undulations created the world. Tiamat, She-Dragon of Chaos, was upset about this state of affairs and killed Ea in his sleep. Then (since she couldn’t undo the cosmos) she decreed that the horn would be sounded again at so future point to call forth Anu to end it. Because he had failed to warn Ea, Ishum was confined to “a darksome realm” where only Anu dwelled. It was his job to make sure Anu stayed satisfied with an occasional tasty planetoid.

His life went on in that way until Khnathaiti found a way to fake the horn’s sounding and summon Anu. Now:

Meanwhile, somewhere amid the nine worlds, the caravan with Tara in it reaches its destination:

Things to Notice:

• This is the penultimate issue of Warlord.
• Jan Duursema is listed as "co-plotter."

Where It Comes From:
The cosmic deities in this issue have names borrowed from Mesopotamian mythologies. Ishum is the name of a minor Akkadian god, related to the sun but also a herald of war. Ea is a Akkadian and Babylonian deity who is god of creation and seawater. Tiamat (perhaps more famous from her Dungeon & Dragons namesake) is indeed a chaos dragon, and primordial goddess of the ocean.

There are several references to there being nine worlds or realms in this story. This is a new edition to the Warlord cosmology. It was probably an idea borrowed from Norse mythology.