The Dionysos Syndrome

Dionysos is not a superhuman Olympian or a Titan from beyond the Cosmos. Any human worshipped as that god (and there have been several) is actually an infected carrier of a nanomachine virus that the Olympians call "Dionysos." The origins of the nanomachines are unclear; Some tales imply it was born in the Underworld (perhaps created in a plot for revenge by the imprisioned Titans), while others suggest Zeus is it's creator. Whatever its origins, the Olympians seem unwilling or unable to stop its spread.

In the typical infected individual, Dionysos causes an extreme losing of inhibitions, exacerbated by uncontrolled use of any intoxicant available, most often wine and plant-derived hallucinogens or deliriants. In some cases, Dionysos itself causes hallucinatory experiences. Groups of Dionysos infected will often go into an estatic frenzy of sexual abandon and compulsive violence. They congregate in groups, roaming the countryside following one of their number that they believe to be Dionysos. The so-designated individual acts accordingly. The role shifts after a period of days to weeks, though the shift may occur abruptly.

Must Dionysos infected celebrants will be normal humans, though satyrs, nymphs (called maenads, though this term is sometimes applied to all infected females), sileni, and centaurs will also be found among them at times. When a group of Dionysos infected are encountered, a roll on the Monster Reaction Table determines how they respond. Resisting their demands to join their revels, causes a +2 penalty on the roll. Anyone in close proximity to an infect individual (within 3 feet) must make a save versus poison or join the revelry for 1d6 turns. Thereafter, as long as the individual remains in proximity to the infected, a failed saving throw means the effect continues for 2d6 turns, and a success 1d6. Three failed saving throws in a row mean the effect is permanent until cured by sorcery or "divine" intervention. Contact with body fluids of infected give a -2 to saving throws.

Warlord Wednesday: Ballad Part 2

Here's another installment of my examination of  the adventures DC Comics' Travis Morgan--The Warlord.  The earlier installments can be found here...

"Ballad Part 2"

Warlord (vol. 2) #2 (February 1992)

Written by Mike Grell; Art by Dameon Willich and Rick Hoberg

Synopsis: A man trudges through the snowy wastes of what must be the Skartarian Terminator. He carries something wrapped in his cloak, something that compels him in his task. In the town of Hazrak, he’s confronted by robbers eager to get a look at what he holds so dear, but he dispatches them easily. Nothing will get in his way.

He arrives at a strange temple. Inside a woman, a priestess, is waiting.

He lays his burden upon an alter and:

Meanwhile, the minstrel accepts the challenge the veteran gave last issue—but only if the veteran accompanies him. The old man agrees.

They’ll need horses for their journey, though, and neither has any coin. The minstrel picks the purse of a passerby. He grew up on the streets and knows how to get by.

After acquiring horses, the two ride to Castle Deimos:

Initially, they are chased from the gate by phantom monsters. The minstrel realizes that he and the veteran saw different monsters and notices the horses weren’t frightened. It’s an illusion, based on fear. They advance again, cautiously, and this time pass through the phantoms unharmed. A man greets them and says the Mistress will see them, now.

She says the minstrel has “come seeking a hero” like she “came seeking a father.” She fears they both will “have to get use to disappointment.”

The sorceress relates how her father (devastated by the death of her mother, perhaps) shipped her off to live with an aunt, while he went off to fight in a war. When he didn’t return, she went looking for him, and found him in Skartaris. Even there he couldn't stay committed to the rebellion he started or the warrior queen he loved. He always needed a challenge: something new to discover, something new to conquer.

He comes and asks for her help from time to time. She never denies him, but she never lets him close anymore.

She leaves the minstrel and veteran with one final thought: “He’s not a bad man,” she says. “Not in his heart…”

After the two have left Castle Deimos, Jennifer Morgan looks into her crystal ball and sees and image of her father. She tells him she misses him. Though of course, there is no one to hear.

Things to Notice:

• On the cover, Grell puts Jennifer in the tiara she wore in her first "in-costume" appearance in issue #54.

Where It Comes From:
Grelle expands a bit here on the details he presented in issue #38 in regard to Jennifer's and her father's pre-Skartarian histories.

The flashbacks in this issue show Jennifer's hair as white in her childhood. This is consistent with her earlier portrayals where it was blonde until she learned magic. (The change in her hair color was never explained in-story.)

A Roadside Distraction

After the busy with this swamp witch, the crew in my WaRP Weird Adventures game finally arrived in Fort Lagarto, the town closest to Urst's opulent estate, Shamballa. After getting situated in their hotel, they went out to buy "adventuring supplies" (determined not to get caught without the necessary items this time--they spend a lot of time prepping), they became curious about a tourist trap they saw called the Snake-a-torium. So curious, in fact, that they delayed their journey to Shamballa to take it in.

The place was run by a Southern gentleman-type named Gaston Redfoot:

(He wasn't dressed this nice at the Snake-a-torium)

Gaston guides them through some fairly shabby enclosures with an albino alligator and various and sundry snakes. Nothing is particularly of interest, until they get the final room that contains a naga. She eyes them, but does not speak--and Redfoot warns them about disturbing him. The player's are pretty sure this all is important and they are even more certain when Redfoot shows them to the gift shop and there's a shelf full of snowglobes almost identical to the one that is supposedly the "key" to Shamballa!

Is there a connection or are the player's just seeing things that aren't there? We'll find out.

Mother Earth

Though intimately connected to biological life in the Cosmos, Gaia is a Primordial and mother to titans and monsters. She predates matter and time, but apparently chose to sacrifice that transcendant existence for reasons known only to her.

Gaia is the Earth. The molecular substrata of her nervous system run through the soil and powers itself from the magnetic field generated by churning magma in the planet's core. The infrastructure of her consciousness weaves through the limbs of trees, transmits signals through the emergent patterns of birds in flight; and absorbs data from nanite motes carried on the winds and rains and molecular machinery in the bloodstreams of animals.

Her mental architecture as it is, Gaia's thoughts and experiences are alien to more limited beings, though she is aware of all those connected to her in a deep way. Gaia has subsystems or partial avatars instantiated with consciousnesses more relatable to humans and Olympians called nymphs. They allow her more specialized actions and directed experiences than she is able to get otherwise. Nymphs are often classified by a geographical feature, locations, or specialty. It's unclear if Gaia herself makes any such distinction, however.

Brief manifestations of a nymph are typically of the faces or bodies of women formed from a convenient medium, generally the one to which the nymph is "related" (i.e. water for a naiad). Longer manifestations are full physical beings, gynoids built from their associated medium (if practical) but more commonly from biological materials. It takes Gaia less than five minutes to assemble a nymph body under normal circumstances.

Some nymphs have long lifespans and develop very distinct personalities and attributes, though not all of the beings the Greeks classify as nymphs are actually avatars of Gaia. Some of the frenzied maenads in Dionysos's retinue are nymphs, but the Lampade will-o'-wisps that accompany Hekate and other so-called "underworld nymphs" are different sorts of servitors.

NYMPH
No. Enc.:  1d6
Movement:  120' (40')
Armor Class:  9
Hit Dice:  3
Attacks: 1
Damage: 0 or by weapon
Save:  L4
Morale:  6

This represents an embodied (long manifestation) nymph. They may possess slightly different abilities based on their particular type. Nymphs appear as beautiful young women, often nude.

All nymphs possess the abilities empathy and regenerative capability. They can functionally teleport (as per the Mutant Future power, but with no chance of error for unfamiliar surroundings) by being "re-absorbed" into Gaia and re-assembled elsewhere. Examples of the abilities specific to certain types:

Anthousi (flowers): fragrance development
Dryades (trees and forests): natural armor

The Future of the Past

Angus McKie

Back when I talked about the Strange Stars "Appendix N," I mentioned how I saw the stylings of this particular future as harkening back to previous decades. I imagine spaceships like in seventies films, seventies and eighties book covers and comics books, and particularly the Terran Trade Authority books.

Terran Trade Authority

Also, the groovy fashions of late sixties and seventies book cover art, the euro-sensibilities of Heavy Metal, and disco-era comic book sci-fi in the U.S. inform how I view the fashion and material culture. Sure they're silly in a lot of ways, but often so are clothes from real historical eras to modern sensibilities.

Chaykin's Monark Starstalker

Mike Grell's Charma

Now as anyone who's been reading the posts knows, I'm not doing retro-sci-fi, overall. It's just that it seems like the there is a narrow range of how the future is viewed in any given era. Science fiction done today tends to look the same: a lot of darkness, sleek suits, and electric blue holograms, etc. I'm certainly not immune to recent influences, but I feel like those things get too familiar. The future needs to seem exotic and going back to the past is a way to restore some of that exoticism. At least it reminds me (and maybe other around my age) of a time where the future looked different, and we were young enough to be encountering these images and the ideas behind them for the first time.

Stymphalides

No. Enc.:  2d4 (4d6)
Movement:  90' (30')
         —Fly:  120' (40')
Armor Class:  3
Hit Dice:  1
Attacks:  2 (1 talons, 1 beak); or 1 feather volley
Damage:  1d4 / 1d4; 1d8
Save:  L2
Morale:  12

Stymphalides are sometimes called Stymphalian birds or birds of Ares, but they aren't actually birds at all. They're self-replicating robots, resembling something like a cross between a heron and a mosquito, made of bronze knives. The blades that form their wings aren't merely decorative: They're able to launch them at opponents. The Stymphalides got their name from the flock encountered by Herakles at Lake Stymphalis in Arkadia, but the Argonauts also fought a group tasked with guarding the Amazonian shrine to Ares in the Black Sea.

Ares (or one of his servitors) designed the Stymphalides as weapons of terror. They consume human flesh (indeed any animal flesh), filtering essential metals and nutrients from it. They excrete a waste product toxic to animals and crops (Poison Class 1 in Mutant Future terms).

Warlord Wednesday: Ballad: Kilt Him A B'ar

Here's another installment of my examination of  the adventures DC Comics' Travis Morgan--The Warlord.  The earlier installments can be found here...

"Ballad Part 1: Kilt Him a B'ar"

Warlord (vol. 2) #1 (January 1992)

Written by Mike Grell; Art by Dameon Willich and Rick Hoberg

Synopsis: A lone minstrel makes his way on horseback across the dangerous wilderness of Skartaris to the Terminator and the dangerous “civilization” of an outpost named Hazrak. He takes a gig in a tavern, but finds it ill-suited to songs of love. Finally, he hits on the ballad of the Warlord and that gets the room to pay attention.

After the performance, he’s approached by a grizzled veteran who tells him he’s a fool for believing that heroic nonsense—just like the man he’s singing about. The minstrel chides the old man for defaming a hero.

The man agrees the Warlord is a legend, and that he could have been a hero.

The Warlord had been a great warrior, and inspired men on the battlefield. He also inspired with his words:

But in the end:

The veteran recounts the Warlord’s origin: how he came from another world, one the heart of a warrior queen, rose from slavery in the gladiatorial arena to lead a revolution across Skartaris. That was when the veteran (who had been a scholar-slave for a Theran noble) came to meet him. The Warlord told the scholar a little about his home world, but also revealed what he knew of Skartaris’s Atlantean past.

The minstrel is skeptical about all of this. The old scholar turned veteran issues a challenge:

Things to Notice:

• Grell provides the cover.
• None of the Warlord regular cast appear in this issue except in flashback.

Where It Comes From:
From the outset, it's clear that Grell is looking to chart a different course in this limited series than the writers that followed him on the original title. He returns to the theme of the flaws--the fundamental tragedy--of Travis Morgan's character and amplifies it.

This series serves to balance the view Morgan's perspective on his life as somewhat illustrated in the appearance in Green Arrow. There he's Peter Pan. Here we see the how the adult world reacts to him.

In presenting Skartaris to us, Grell shows a unicorn being eaten by a carnosaur. Like I mentioned way back in my commentary to volume 1 issue #12, the unicorn again seems to represent the beauty and fantastic nature of Skartaris.