Aphrodite

Fights As: L5
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 4
Hit Points: 194
Attacks: 1
Damage: as below or by weapon
Save: L10

S: 17   I: 18   W: 17   D: 18   C: 23   CH: 25

Special Abilities: as an Olympian, and see below

Aphrodite is worshipped by mortals as the goddess of beauty, love, and procreation, but it is her own pleasure that she cares for more than anyone else’s. Aphrodite engages in research (if it can be called that) in various ways of enhancing mortal sexual pleasure and manipulating emotion. She most often appears as a perfectly formed woman with golden hair, but Aphrodite makes alterations both major and minor to her bodies the way other Olympians change clothes. Whatever the particulars of her form, her vanity ensures she is always beautiful.

Aphrodite doesn't engage in combat if she can avoid it. She wears a belt from which she can release nanites capable of manipulating emotional areas of the brain. It works like empathy except its effects are limited to creating attraction or pleasure (WIL 21 for the purposes of attack).

Gods, Demi-Gods & Strangeness

Is my new working title for my posts on the startling science fantasy truth behind Greek myth, a Mutant Future setting in the past. Here's what I've written so far for those who need to catch up:

An introduction.

Primordials:
Gaia

Titans: (Overview)
Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Themis
Helios
Okeanos

Gods:
Olympians
Dionysos
Hades
Nymphs

Monsters:
Centaurs
Cyclopes
Echidna
Giant Boars, Dragons, and Satyrs
Medusa
The Minotaur and Pasiphae
Stymphalian birds

Bomoth Bebop

Bomoth (sing. boma) are a species of renowned throughout the known galaxy as musicians. Though there home moon (Woon) is in the Coreward Reach, they can be encountered on tour in the various hegemonies and even the Zuran Expanse. They are best known for the improvisational, syncopated musical genre known as Bomoth jook.

Appearance and Biology: Bomoth appear something like blue giant caterpillars, 1.5 to 2.5 m long. They are invertebrates, possessing a hydrostatic skeleton. There faces are oddly human-like, though they have four eyes, each inferior to the human eye, but roughly comparable in the aggregate. Their auditory sensors are arranged around their head in a corona-like fashion, and have different receptors for different frequency ranges, lending overall superior sound discrimination to humans. Their bellows-like lungs enable fine breath control, aiding their playing of some musical instruments. Their vocal apparatus is such that they are incredible mimics. The number of their limbs depend on the individual's length, but the first 2 to 3 segments end in muscular tendrils capable of fine manipulation. The other limbs are similarly equipped, but less dexterous in most individuals. It's unclear how many sexes there are among them; bomoth are circumspect on that question with other species. Some individuals grow twin rows of dorsal spines, but the size of these vary with age and likely other factors.

A popular theory (likely suggested by their resemblance to caterpillars) is that bomoth are a larval form of some other organism. Visitors to the underground mushroom forests of their home moon occasionally report sightings of butterfly-winged creatures resembling human females flitting through the twilight. These sighting are dismissed as the result of exposure to psychoactive fungi spores in the atmosphere.

Artist rendition of one of the so-called "Angels of Woon"

Psychology: Bomoth tend to be relaxed, almost to the point of imperturbability. This is often attributed to their habitual use of a fungus-derived, mild intoxicant chreech, but it's likely a species trait. Bomoth are often philosophical and given to obscure musings, but this never gets in the way of praticalities, like payment for performances or seeking pleasure. Jook musicians are known for a distinctive slang, all but impenetrable to the uninitiated. 

No. Appearing:1-4

AC: 8

Hit Dice: 1

Saving Throw: Warrior 1

Attack Bonus: +0

Damage: by weapon, or 1-2 punch

Movement: 20’

Skill Bonus: +3

Morale: 7

Warlord Wednesday: Ballad Part 4

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 IV"

Warlord (vol. 2) #4 (April 1992)

Written by Mike Grell; Art by Dameon Willich and Tim Burgard

Synopsis: The stone body housing the skull of Deimos rises as the cultists prostrate themselves and praise him. They tell Deimos they worship him and hate the Warlord. They are ready to serve their god and await his command. Deimos’s first order for them:

Deimos laughs at the idea that he’s a god as he takes the throne, surrounded by the bodies of his would-be worshippers.

Meanwhile, Mariah finds Tinder playing guitar in a garden. She asks if it bothers him, going in search of the legend of the Warlord and finding the man Travis Morgan. She tells him she understands and relates her own story: how she met Morgan and followed him to Skartaris for the promise of adventure. Like Morgan, she fell in love with it and the freedom it offered. Coming from an oppressive society, she was eventually taken in by Morgan’s words like everyone else.

Back in Thera, Deimos infuses his slain worshippers with magical energy. The bodies rise as a zombie army! Deimos has a plan to finally destroy his hated enemy, the Warlord: “This time, the very Sun will run red with blood…and black with fear!”

Continuing their ride to Shamballah, Tinder remarks to Petrus that Morgan seems to hold an attraction to beautiful women. Petrus says except for one—the woman who was a cat or the cat who was a woman. He warns Tinder to be careful around her should they meet her.

They arrive in Shamballah and make their way to the palace. Morgan (predictably) isn’t there, but someone else is:

Tinder is surprised; he thought she was dead. Tara remarks he shouldn’t believe everything he hears. She leads them into the palace. Morgan is seldom there, she tells Tinder. He’s bored by affairs of state and runs off with his mistress. Tinder doesn’t know what to say, but Tara clarifies:

He runs off and then returns. Every time he does, Tara breaks his nose. He didn’t believe her the last time, when she told him if he left to never come back. He couldn’t believe her, because if he did he couldn’t have left. She knows he loves her after a fashion, but to stay would mean a slow and boring death. “And it takes no wizard to forsee that for Morgan death will be anything but boring.”

Suddenly, there’s an earthquake. When it’s subsided, they notice the sun is darker and it’s light redder.

Somewhere, Deimos laughs.

Things to Notice:

• Deimos is pretty ungrateful. No surprise there.
• Despite her cover appearance, Shakira only appears in flashback in this issue.

Where It Comes From:
Grell is perhaps referencing story arc in the original series (#126-133) that had Tara killed. Of course, she was eventually resurrected.

Easy Being Green

The planet Gaea is one of the wonders of the Coreward Reach: It's an exact replica of Old Earth down to the landmasses. It's most obvious difference is the lack of hominids and most of their artifacts. The other changes are less visible but even more profound; The biosphere forms one gigantic mind, and the most independent and intelligent of its constituent programs are the virids.

Appearance and Biology: Virid tribes vary a great deal in height and build: some are small, slight, and elfin, while others are large and brutish. They all resemble each in that their biology shows a blending of plant and animal characteristics. They have skins of various shades green (due to presence of symbiotic cyanobacteria) and foliage-like hair.

All virids have nanites in their systems linking them with Gaea, whom they think of as the Great Mother. Gaea's consciousness (if such a term is relevant for such an alien intellect), is too distributed to interact in a verbal way without great effort, but virid experience dreams and visions that they view as messages from her.

Psychology: Virid are little different from primitive humans--except that they live in an environment that resembles primeval Earth, but is actually a fairly closely maintained garden. They're world isn't without dangers, but their lives are much more free of hurt or want than any other primitive humanoids. This has made them generally a gregarious and pleasure-loving people. This friendliness does not extend to those who seek to harm any of their tribe.

Stats/Abilites: Most virids have ability scores in the same range as humans, though larger or smaller tribes will vary. Their symbiotic organisms supplement their metabolism and faster healing when they are under visible light sources with spectra similar to their native yellow sun. Every day spent in direct sunlight allows them to heal 1 additional hit point, and every day resting in direct sunlight allows a virid to recovery 2 additional hit points. They also lose System Strain at a rate of 2 points a day in the sun. Virids get a +1 to Physical Effect saving throws against plant-derived toxins.

Mysteries: It seems clear that Gaea and the virids were engineered (or at least modified), but what ancient power was responsible, and to what purpose? Why is Gaea intelligent and what does she want?

1000

This is my 1000th post. That's 180 Warlord Wednesdays, 221 posts about a place called the City, and nearly 7000 comments--some of which are actually by other people.

Thanks to everyone that has stopped by over the three and a half years of this blog's existence and the other bloggers (some still going strong, some checking in sporadically, and others long moved on) that have made it a good community to be a part of.

I don't know if I've got 1000 more, but there is more to come. Stick around.

Mother to Monsters

Echidna is a vast, protoplasmic entity whose main body is in the abyssal depths, though she has spread tendrils to shallower regions. She was a creation of the Titans, a living bio-assembler and the primeval source of all life on Earth. She should have long ago lapsed into programmed senescence, but instead, infected by Typhon, she makes monsters. Her rippling, protean bulk disgorges half-formed, primitive organisms (some free-swimming, others encased in membraneous sacs) from its surface. Many of these die, falling back into Echidna to be engulfed and re-absorbed, but others rise to the surface--and continue to evolve. Echidna is intelligent (though with an intelligence alien to humans) and will respond to stimuli, sometimes exuding shapes to mimic them.

Any monster can potentially be generated by echidna, but here are some vaugely mythology related ones. Feel free to reskin the monsters for maximum grotesqueness while keeping the stats the same:
1 - Giant Boar
2 - Chimera
3 - Naga
4 - Giant Fish
5 - Hill Giant
6 - Hydra
7 - Giant Leech
8 - Manticore
9 - Giant Octopus
10 - Giant Snake