Images from the Strange Stars

Art by Michael Golden

Thraxu blades are older than the thrax warrior culture that now wields them. The moiré pattern evident on close inspection of the (presumably inactive) sword's edge represent guides for programmable matter that (when the blade is energized) create a quantum virtual edge capable of cutting spacetime. Power packs for the ancient weapons are hard to come by, and so thrax knights wisely conserve their usage of high power settings.

Art by Gerald Parel

A menace on the Coreward Reach, the Scavengers are opportunistic pirates who follow the Locusts, a giant swarm of von Neumann machines that devour any habitats they encounter. The Scavenger scouts perform hit and run raids before the arrival of the mass of the swarm, and the majority of their fleet sweeps up any surviving ships once the swarm passes. Scavengers commonly have obvious and primitivist cybernetics, the better to frighten victims into submission.

Art by Fernando Fernandez

The Sisterhood of Morrgna zealously protect their habitat in the Zuran Expanse from outsiders. Sometimes, however, warriors like this one are glimpsed in mercenary cadres on other worlds.

Mother of the Minotaur

Pasiphae conceived the Minotaur, but not in the salacious way the imaginations of the Greek mythographers would have it. They said that she (like her sister Circe) practiced witchcraft, but they could not understand the advanced biological sciences the sisters' could command. They were the "children" of titans and immortal. They both had access to bio-assemblers that could splice the genetic material of different species. Circe was an artist, after a fashion; Pasiphae created her Minotaur for revenge.

Minos was an unfaithful husband. Pasiphae, with the help of her pupil, the genius Daedelus, sought to publicly shame her husband by the creation of the Minotaur. She blended the genetic material of a sacred, sacrificial bull and her husband's own. Minos hide the creature from public view, but the beast's hunger demanded sacrifice.

As the stories have it, Prince Theseus eventually killed the Minotaur. Minos's shame was widely known, and Pasiphae likely cared little that she was slandered, as well.

That still didn't stop Minos's philandering. It's said that later Pasiphae created sexual transmitted nanites that would consume any woman but her herself and infected Minos with them.

Pasiphae's Laboratory:
The laboratory of Pasiphae (or Circe) contains a small assembler device capable of making almost anything it has plans for, but mostly used to biotechnological purposes. It can produced any of the drugs and medications listed in the Mutant Future book, and thereotically almost any handheld equipment, but would be limited by the plans in its computer databank.

Near the assembler is a larger tank full of a light green nanomachine goo, that can either dissemble and scan anything biological put into it or "build" a biological entity to certain specifications. It can used to replicate the activities of all the medical devices listed in Mutant Future.

All the devices work on voice command, but they are still complexity Class 3 (on the Technology Roll) to get anything useful from.

Here Comes the Sun

The post I intended didn't get written last night, but here's another titan from the science fantasy Greek myth idea I had posted a snippet on on G+ that hasn't been mentioned on the blog:

Helios is the titan personifying the Sun to the Greeks, but is in actuality an intelligence of plasma and magnetic fields encoded into the sun's surface. He stayed neutral in the war between the titans and the Olympians and still rules over the other plasma intelligences dwelling in his realm.

His avatar is seldom seen on Earth.

Strange Stars Art

Here are representatives of two historical cultures of the Zuran Expanse, courtesy of Jez Gordon, illustrator extraordinaire.

On the left is one of the zurr. They flourished between the time of the Great Collapse and the present era. The Expanse is named for them, though how much of the territory their civilization actually controlled is a matter of debate. The zurr are only known from their iconography (images of tall humanoids in unadorned, flowing robes and elaborate, non-representational masks), some ritual sites with oddly angled monumental structures, and a few apparently functionless artifacts. Mysteriously, they left no information technology or tools necessary for an advanced civilization behind, but their presence is attested on multiple worlds. They are blamed for unleashing the ssraad upon the galaxy.

On the right is one of the researcher-sadists called Faceless Ones. In the time of the Great Collapse, a cabal of  like-minded individuals set themselves up in a orbital sanctum and set about to explore extremes of sensation. They replaced their faces with featureless metallic masks that were actually incredibly sensitive sensory and recording apparatus. Their lower limbs they likewise replaced with mechanical ones covered with sensory fibers in a variety of modalities. The Faceless Ones strove to experience and archive everything they could about their depraved experiments on those they fell into their hands. Ultimately, they created the Algosians as their servitors and collaborators.

Warlord Wednesday: And the Cosmos Ends

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 2: And the Cosmos Ends"

Warlord #133 (Winter 1988)

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

Synopsis: Ishum leads Morgan and Tara and the group of warriors freed from Yk’Kphat’s jewels back to Skartaris. In her sanctum beneath the volcano, Khnathaiti gloats to her demons that the destruction wrought by Anu will lead to the creation of a new universe with her as its queen. And the cosmos draws to its end.

Morgan and crew arrive in Shamballah and he’s reunited with Jennifer and Shakira. Ishum raises the horn to his lips to blow it but:

Yk’Kphat has played on last trick.

The prophecy of doom begins to fulfill itself. Anu releases beams of fire, and the nine worlds begin to burn. Ice follows, flash freezing everything in touches. Then comes stone, turning men and beast in statutes. Morgan and his friends can only watch helpless, but protected behind a magic shield courtesy of Jennifer.

All of a sudden, Aoife emerges from a portal with the real god-horn in her hand. Before he can, one of Anu’s blasts turns him to stone. He drops the horn, but Morgan dives over the edge of the precipe their standing on and catches it. Anu grabs Morgan with one its tentacles. Morgan resolves to take Anu with him if he’s going. 

He blows the horn:

Anu returns to his plane of rest. The nine worlds are saved.

Jennifer goes to confront Khathaiti. It turns out that won’t be necessary: Khnathaiti and her minions have been turned to stone, victims of the forces they released.

Aoife explains to the others what happened. Yk’kphat was miffed at Khnathaiti’s arrogance, so he let Aoife carry the horn to them, but he doesn’t grant favors without exacting a price. He demands the return of the warriors freed from his jewels. Knowing that Morgan loves Tara and not her, Aoife as agreed to substitute for Tara.

The warriors reluctantly agree, knowing that is the only way to keep petulant Yk’Kphat from summoning Anu again. They boast they’ll all escape together one day.

After seeing their compatriots off, our heroes turn to the task of reuniting Tara’s spirit with her body. Jennifer casts her spell and it’s a success. Tara awakens.

And so ends Warlord vol. 1.

Unanswered Questions:

• Is Tinder still in Wizard World?
• Will Tara and Morgan ever discover that he's really their son?
• Is Morgan really going to leave Mariah with that traitor and abuser Maddox?
• Will Machiste ever get a queen?
• What's Shakira's true origin?

Where to from here: 
The first volume of Warlord is done, but his story isn't over. In 1989, Mike Grell would return to his creation for the first time in 6 years. 

Medusa

No. Enc.:  1?
Movement:  45' (20')
Armor Class:  8
Hit Dice:  5
Attacks:  1 (tentacles or special)
Damage:  1d3
Save:  L5
Morale:  8

The legends of Medusa have there basis in a bizarre creature perhaps brought to Earth from a distant world or perhaps designed by the Olympians or titans from the DNA of some sea-creature. The only known gorgon or medusa dwells in a cave complex in mountains near a ruin city of an unknown civilization in the Libyan. The desert around the cave is dotted with statues in lifelike poses evocative of horror.

The medusa is vaguely tree-like in appearance (an upright cylindrical body covered with tendrils), but it possess a single, glowing eye-like structure. This structure is actually a light emitter that produces a beam in a pattern with effects on the nervous systems of vertebrates. Anyone looking at the medusa when the beam is fired must save versus Stun Attack or be paralyzed by neural lock for 1d6 turns (save means movement at half for 2d6 rounds).

It's tendrils release a thick goo which, combined with silicates in the environment can petrify the organic mass of a human body in 1d6+4 days. The medusa feeds off organic material displayed in this process.

Mutations:  Prehensile tendrils, toxic weapon.

Images from Medusa vs the Son of Hercules(Perseus The Invincible) 1962

Giant Monster Battles

As a wise blogging compañero has already opined: if the basic conceit of Pacific Rim seems like something you would like, you should see it.

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about the gaming potential of the setup. Of course, there's the eminently gameable setting of the film--particular in the 7 year period where humankind is holding off the kaiju threat. But we don't have to stop there.

Maybe the kaiju wind up just occupying certain territory?  The comic limited series Giant Killer by Dan Brereton posits just this sort of scenario. It also offers a wider variety of kaiju (and kaiju categories) than Pacific Rim.

Of course, that sort of situation could easily lead to a post-apocalyptic scenario were kaiju devastate and occupy more and more of the world. In the most pessimistic case, this could lead to something resembling The Night Land, where surviving humans hold out in a last redoubt and sally forth to fight for a lost cause. A less grim version might see humanity escaping to orbital habitats and sending their best mecha pilots to earth to fight to reclaim territory--something akin to Gundam G, but without the tournament element.

That's just off the top of my head. In sure there are a lot more ways to get those robots fighting giant monsters.