Zone Phenomena

Logo by Hereticwerks

blue buzz: A roughly phone booth sized patch of pale blue light, flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb. Within 20 feet or so, a constant buzz like an alarm clock can be heard, though approximately 10% of individuals will hear haunting, indescribable music instead. Anyone entering the area of light experiences a slowing of time to roughly 14% it's normal rate. Leaving the area can be a shock to the system (saving throw), and lead to sudden death with autopsy revealing advanced aging of the heart muscle. Everyone experiences distracting tinnitus for  1-6 hours.

chasing shadow: Too thick and deep black to be natural, the chasing shadow is nevertheless able to lurk unseen in normal darkness. It slides out of hiding when a living thing draws near, and if not stopped, attaches itself to them at their feet like a normal shadow--though does not also flow out in the same direction as the natural one. It slowly begins to crawl up the victims body and if not stopped, will cover a person complete in darkness in 20-30 hours. Over the next 30-45 minutes it will contort and collapse their body until only the flat shadow remains. What happens to the victim is unknown. If caught early, the shadow can be removed but only if the victim is surrounded by bright light and a small laser (like a laser pointer, for example) is used carefully "cut" away from the chasing shadow.

memory flashes: Groups of will-o'-the-wisp-like flashes of light with colorful after-images. They move quickly to swarm around a person, typically for no more than a minute. After the flashes pass, a person so caught will have one or more new memories of things that happened to someone else instead of them. They will also likely notice at some point that one or more of their own memories are missing--always small, discrete things, but perhaps important (like a telephone number of the location of something).

razorfog: Appears as a patch of fog or white smoke (typically 10'x20'), drifting in the breeze (even when the air is still), but is actually more like a cloud of talcum powder in consistency. Anyone caught in a razorfog takes 2 points of damage per round if not armored or wearing protective clothing. Anyone damaged by the fog may become confused (per spell) and will be at -2 to attacks and saves as long as they're engulfed. The damaging effects of razorfog linger 3 rounds after being freed of the fog, only the victim is thoroughly washed.

voidflower: Voidflowers are translucent tubular structures (from a distance they look like wavering heat haze) with funnel mouths like featureless black holes poked in the fabric of the world. They're found in clumps of 5-20 and stand about 2.5 feet tall. Voidflowers are believed to stretched out pricks in spacetime. Anything brought within reach of a voidflower maw will trigger it to snap, swallowing any matter inside. The quantum-thin edge of the maw can pass through solid matter as easy as air, swallowing internal material as easy as that on the outside.

See more of the collaborative The Zones project here.

In the Zone

Over at the Fate SF blog, John introduced a cool community project inspired by the science fiction novel Roadside Picnic and the 1979 film based on it, Stalker. Porky's already got a contribution in, and Hereticwerks has made some cool logos (like the one above).

I had intended to jump in today, but going to Thor: The Dark World ate up my evening. I'm going to get my contribution ready for next week, and I encourage other bloggers (or nonbloggers for that matter) to think about getting in on it.

Night Music

There was discussion on G+ a few days ago about a suitable soundtrack for a game of Night's Black Agents, Kenneth Hite's GUMSHOE combination of spy thriller and supernatural horror. Here are my suggestions (follow the links for a listen):

1. The Gothic Touch
("Convoy Destruct" Atticus Ross)
2. Hunters
("Pinned and Mounted" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
3.  A Deserted Bahnhof Just After 2 AM
("Under the Midnight Sun" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
4. Chase
("Container Park" The Chemical Brothers)
5. The Smell of Blood
("Relapsed" Atticus Ross)
6. Crate from Wallachia, Coffin-Sized
("Den of Vice" Atticus Ross)
7. Knives and Stakes
("Special Ops" The Chemical Brothers)
8. In the Dark
("Oraculum" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
9. Wings in the Night
("Bird of Prey" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

10. Prague, 20:18 CET

("7 Years Later" Atticus Ross)
11. Assault
("Infiltrator" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
12. Fight in the Crypt
("Bahnhof Rumble" The Chemical Brothers)

Warlord Wednesday: The Castle's Secret

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

"Saga Part 4: The Castle's Secret"

Warlord (vol. 4) #4 (September 2009) Written by Mike Grell; Penciled by Joe Prado & Chad Hardin; Inked by Wayne Faucher, Dan Green & Walden Wong

Synopsis: Tinder and Alysha try to convince villagers near the Golden God's citadel to stand and fight, but they're having none of it. Tinder decides he and Alysha have to sneak back into the citadel to get more information that might help Tara and the Shamballan army (who are on the way).

Alysha will need to be dressed less "Earth style" to be inconspicuous. She refuses the standard Skartarian look:

Shakira, of course, takes issue with this opinion. She also tells the two that Morgan, Machiste, and Mariah are captives.

In the citadel, reporter Ewan McBane tells Morgan and Machiste about how he and his group got to this point. Ned Hawkins apparently found something--a gem maybe. Somehow, it led him to the citadel and gave him powers. Kate Archer became his concubine. Alysha ran off and (Ewan believes) probably got killed.

Meanwhile, Alysha is very much alive and now in Skartarian duds. Shakira shows Tinder and Alysha a back entrance to the castle: what appears to be a sewer opening in a cliffside. After a bit of a climb, they find it actually leads into Deimos's old laboratory.

Ned Hawkins, the Golden God, is having a little trouble with his Theran allies. He motivates them by shooting their leader, then promising them Morgan's head on a standard to carry into battle. Mariah reminds him he promised to spare her friends if she translated for him. He suggests she gets translating.

It turns out Deimos wrote his spells in blood in an Atlantean technical manual. Kate realizes that the technical manual has code in binary. They don't need Mariah to translate that part, just Kate's laptop, apparently.

Tinder and crew run into Ewan who has had a change of heart and is heading back with keys to free Morgan and Machiste. The group does so, but quickly meet resistance from Hawkin's guards. They fight to the laboratory, where Morgan tells the rest to run ahead while he holds the goons off. Machiste and Shakira ignore him and stay behind.

Morgan and friends push a large crystal container over to block the doorway. Unfortunately, it breaks open and frees this guy:

After a bit of a fight, Shakira kills it with a spear. They join the others in the river, and manage to drop a portcullis to keep their pursuers out.

They've got to stop Hawkins before he gathers his forces. Morgan gives Machiste the crystal Jennifer gave him to and sends his friend to the nearest sunlit peak to make contact. Shakira is going back into the citadel in cat form to spy. Morgan and Ewan ride back to the portal to the Himalayas. Morgan plans to go through and get weapons to combat Hawkins's Atlantean tech.

They're going to need them, as Hawkins has finally unlocked the secrets of Deimos's book.

Things to Notice:

• Ewan McBane says its been "almost 40 years" since Morgan got to Skartaris. Given that this issue takes place in 2009 and Morgan arrived in 1969, there's nothing almost about it.
• Morgan is shocked to learn he would be 82 years old in the surface world.
• Morgan opines: "When I die, I want it to come as a complete surprise." Foreshadowing?
• Tinder's hair is colored purple all this issue.

Where it comes from: 
The slowness of time in Skartaris compared to Earth is touched on in this issue. This was something frequently brought up in Grell's run but abandoned by later writers. Strangely, Morgan can't believe it's 2009 as that would make him 82. Morgan had been to the surface world several times over the years, so it seems odd that "2009" is a particularly surprising year.

Weekend Matinee

Hammer of the Gods, despite sharing a title with a Led Zeppelin band biography, does not have a single Led Zeppelin song in it--not even "Immigrant Song." Actually, the Doors might have been more appropriate, as Hammer of the Gods is essentially Viking Apocalypse Now. That's a bit of a spoiler, I suppose, but one that will hopefully make you more likely to check out the film.

It's 871 CE and the Vikings trying to conquer lands in the British Isles have hit a setback with their king mortally wounded. He sends one of his sons Steinar on a quest to seek his exiled older brother Hakan and return with a suitable king for their people. The journey will take him across hostile Saxon territory through the deaths of friends and allies and straight into (heh) the heart of darkness.

The film might could have used some of the more artsy direction of Nicholas Refn's Valhalla Rising--then again, maybe its more straightforward action flick first half makes where it's going more of a pleasant surprise.

Bounty Killer isn't as heavy. In a post-apocalyptic future, bounty killers deliver grim (if it wasn't so humorous) justice to the white collar war criminals that brought the world to its current state. Few bounty killers are more successful than the enigmatic Drifter and celebrated Mary Death.  A conspiracy puts the two at odds and leads to a chase across the devastated wastes to confront the secretive rulers, the Council of Nine. 

Bounty Killer plays out like Cowboy Bebop crossed with Mad Max--with a dose of 80s British comic book gallows humor. For what must be a fairly low budget film, it's got good action sequences and a chase scene out of the Road Warrior. Plus, they had to pay Gary Busey's no-doubt exorbitant fee for his small roll.

It also introduces the concept of the "gun caddy"--a henchman for our time (well, the post-apocalyptic future). Barak Hardley steals the show as the would-be best gun caddy in the world, unobtrusively slipping magazines into empty guns or producing new weapons when needed from a dufflebag.

Of course, there's also Christian Pitre as Mary Death to like about the movie: 

Typhon

Typhon was a doomsday weapon created by the Titans in the depths of Tartarus, a matter worm designed bring system failure to the Cosmos--a final revenge against the usurpation of the Olympians. Typhon was defeated before it could reach full virulence, but only after infecting Echidna and turning her into the mother of monsters.

Typhon appears as a storm of black dust--actually a gigantic storm of rapacious micro- and nanobots. Those caught in the storm may be temporarily blinded on a roll of 1 on a d6. Even those not blinded can become confused per Mutant Future. The Typhon storm inflicts 2 points of damage to any character engulfed, double damage to those without some degree of protection (at least thick clothing or armor). Hiding in a body of water halves damage. Even after leaving the storm, a victim with take damage for 3 rounds. The swarm takes no damage except from fire or area effect energy or cold attacks.

Anyone who dies in the swarm rises as a zombie-like vector of Typhon. They develop a random physical mutation as their DNA is overwritten by Typhon. Anyone who takes damage but does not die must make a save vs. Poison or be infected:

Typhon Infection
Save Modifier: -2
Infection Duration: 2 weeks
Affected Stats: INT -1, WIL -1
Damage: 1d4
Further, every week of infection carries a cumulative 20% chance of developing a random physical mutation for the duration of the infection. Those infected hear the whispers of Typhon in their minds, urging them to destruction.

A Weird Adventures Halloween

The comparable holiday to Halloween in the world of the City is Revenant Night at the end of the month of Redfall. It's a night where folklore says the walls between the realms of the dead and the prime material plane thin, allowing spirits who haven't yet moved on to their plane of final reward can slip back into the world of the living. This seldom seems to occur in this modern age, but it can't be ruled out entirely. And there are other strange menaces adventurers might face:

In Motorton, it's the Night of Misrule, where the Dwarf might invite you to the Red Room. Out West, it's a particularly bad time to drive into a ghost town. In the Shambles neighborhood of the City, you can hunt (or be hunted) by a maniacally killer under the influence of the Lord of the Cleaver. Just about anywhere, calliope music might signal the arrival of the Carnival Pandemonium the mysterious Viscount Marzo.

Trick or Treat.