Touring the Strange Stars

The great luxury star liners afford passengers the opportunity to see the civilized worlds in high style--and their are no more opulent ships in known space than those in our Galburac-class. These vessels provide accommodations and recreation for thousands of guests in a variety of different artificial environments.

An endless party awaits travelers, enlivened by stops at exotic resorts and a full array of the latest recreational cybernetics and chemicals.

But these festivities are only a small part of the recreational experiences our star liners offer...

When on safari in our hunting preserve habitats, make sure to follow the instructions of the djägga guides. They'll be sure to remind you that blushing shraik always travel in mating pairs!

Or for those looking for adventure of a more spiritual variety, an aero-sled ride through the canopy of the jungles of Dodona surrounds you in the songs (both auditory and psychic) of its contemplative trees.

Book your star liner cruise today!

Warlord Wednesday: The Forgotten

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

"The Forgotten"

Warlord (vol. 4) #7 (December 2009) Story & Art by Mike Grell

Synopsis: A crow flies across the Skartarian landscape and arrives at the scene of a battle amid ancient ruins. The crow lands on the seemingly dead body of Travis Morgan--and finds out that Morgan isn't dead!

At that moment, a beautiful, white-haired woman in a white tunic comes running toward the ruins, chased by a group of warriors.

Morgan dispatches most of them, but the leader has dragged the woman to a precipice and is dragging her by the neck over it. Morgan shoots him. The man has one word for Morgan before he topples over the cliff:

Morgan saves the woman from falling. She asks him if he's now her "champion." He can't remember.

Morgan dreams of his past fights from his days as a gladiator to leading armies. He awakens, and finds the woman tending his wounds. He can't even remember his name at first, but the woman knows him: Travis Morgan, the Warlord. She briefly recounts his history. She knows a lot about him, but Morgan can't remember who she is, though she does seem familiar. When he asks, she replies:

She's not terribly offended he can't remember her. This is a place of lost things, after all.

She takes him on a tour of the ruins. She tells him they were built by people who came here fleeing a great cataclysm. For hundreds of centuries they built cities and temples to their old gods. But then, there was the Great War. When their followers died, the old gods faded from memory. The survivors degenerated to little more than beasts and the cities crumbled. Of the gods, only a few remain: the most powerful, the most terrible. Occasionally, something summons them back to walk the mortal world.

The woman asks Morgan if he believes in the gods. He doesn't. "What if," she asks, "they believe in you?"

Morgan doesn't have a chance to answer, because at that moment some of those degenerate beast-men attack!

Things to Notice:

• This issue doesn't follow directly from last issue.  More to be revealed.

Where it comes from: 
Presumably, the ancient people who settled Skartaris that the woman talks about were the Atlanteans. The portrayal of their buildings and their statues have an Ancient Greece sort of feel. This is consistent with Grell's portrayal of them in his earliest accounts (like issue #27). Later portrayals (paticularly later creators) are not as consistent and make Atlantis more generic Sword & Sorcery looking.

More Weird West

Last year, I recommended Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World and the (free online) short-story "Lightbringers and Rainmakers" set in that same setting. The sequel The Rise of Ransom City brings together the characters in the two previous works to put an end to a disastrous war between the oppressive order of the Line and their steampunkian AI masters, and the violent chaos represented by the Gun and their outlaw agents to whom they granted superhuman abilities.

Rise of Ransom City purports to be the edited form of the autobiography of self-educated inventor Harry Ransom, and so it's first half is his early life and travels in the West. Some readers might become impatient before the dangling plot from The Half-Made World finally surfaces. Still, there's a lot of color and travelogue in the early chapters that might be of particular interest to gamers. We learn for instance that: "Ford was also haunted by a Spirit that resembled ball-lightning and darted up and down Main Street at dusk, causing strange moods in women" and "dope fiends littered the streets of Caldwell, basking like lizards in the summer heat."

We don't get as much insight into the inner workings of the Gun and the Line as we got in the in the first novel, but we get more details about how their viewed by the rest of humanity and how they interact. I wish Ransom had given us more tidbits on infamous agents of the Gun from The Captains of Crime: Their Glorious Lives and Their Ignominious Ends that he reads from at one point.

Traveller: Vokun

Appearance and Biology: Vokun are virtually identical to baseline humans in outward appearance, except that their skin color is various shades of blue. Those superficial similarities belay a great deal of variance from baseline in their overall physiology: Vokun are extremely durable and heal rapidly, even able to regenerate lost limbs. Vokun store a great deal of fat as the age, to the degree that most elders become sessile. Vokun behavior is also much more under the influence of pheromone signals than other near humans.

History: The vokun species emerged from a hostile, predator-filled environment, where tribal groups competed fiercely for resources. Eventually, groups of allied elders were able to extend their pheromonal influence over progressively larger bands of youths until more stable societies were established.

The vokun eventually spread out into the stars and formed an interstellar empire. The freer they became from scarcity and conflict, the more indolent and pleasure-seeking the vokun grew. As a result the immobility that comes with age occurs much earlier for modern vokun than their ancestors; many are very obese by their thirties and on their way to immobility by their forties.

Vokun society is maintained through the use of mandatory chemical regimens for youth. These provide most of the benefits of exposure to elder pheromones, limiting their impulsivity and allowing better cooperation and subordinance to authority.

Psychology: Outside the influence of elders, young vokun find it somewhat difficult to restrain their antisocial impulses. They are emotional and violent and tend to think of only short-term gain. Elder vokun are still egoists, but they peruse their goals in a more measured way and plan better for the future. Indolence has infected all of vokun society, and they rely increasingly on subordinate species to do most of the work of maintaining their empire.

Stats: Vokun youth have Strength +1 and Endurance +2, but effectively Intelligence -1 due to impulsivity. Middle-aged (34+) vokun have Endurance +1, Social Standing +1, and Dexterity -2. Elder vokun have Endurance +1, Social Standing +2, and Dexterity -2 with an inability to move from one spot without help. All vokun heal extremely rapidly. They heal their Endurance DM for an hour of rest. If they remain active, they heal 1 point per hour. They are able to regenerate (as per the Psionic Power), recovering their Endurance DM in characteristic points for every day of rest. They can't regenerate if they remain active.

[Jumping on the G+ Traveller bandwagon here. These guys are from my Strange Stars setting, but could be plugged in anywhere.]

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone celebrating today has a good holiday.

May all your wishbone-wishes come true.

Warlord Wednesday: Death from Above

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 6: Death from Above"

Warlord (vol. 4) #6 (November 2009) Written by Mike Grell; Penciled by Chad Hardin; Inked by Walden Wong & Wayne Faucher

Synopsis: When last we saw our heroes, it looked like Ned Hawkins, aka the Golden God, had used ancient Atlantean technology to bring an avalanche down on the Shamballan army--with Tara, Jennifer, and Machiste leading it.

Turns out not:

Morgan and Ewan McBane ride down to meet them. Their all quickly joined by Tinder leading a motley troop of volunteers he was able to round up in the villages and the homesteads. Morgan is skeptical as to their abilities and their motivations. A one-eyed man tells Morgan that they don't fight for Tinder, or the Warlord; They fight for the cause he once spoke of: Freedom.

Morgan's shamed by the man's words. Morgan admits he forgot the cause he was fighting more long ago. He admits he was wrong, but he also charges that the people who followed him were wrong in thinking that freedom was something he could give to them.

Unaware of these events, Hawkins is certain he has defeated the Warlord. "What can he do without an army?" He asks Mariah.

"Terrible things, Hawkins." is her reply.

Hawkins isn't convinced. He goes to greet his returning mercenaries who have brought him a box he was looking for that had been "buried deep beneath a temple of the ancients." In payment, he grants them the rights to slave trade in the conquered kingdoms. Hawkins agrees and suggest that start with his paramour Kate. He explains to her that she's challenged him too much of late. That's when:

The army of freedom is here. They storm the fortress. Jennifer uses her magic to Hawkins's Atlantean super-science/sorcery at bay. She says he's not bad for "an amateur" as she blasts him. Mariah snatches up a sword, kills a few guards, and goes after Kate for payback But when Machiste and McBane fight their way to her, Kate has a gun on her. Kate tries to seduce McBane back to her side.

It doesn't work.

Meanwhile, Alysha has been captured and taken aboard Hawkins's skyship as he tries to make his getaway. The damaged (thanks to an RPG fired by Morgan) crashes at the base of the temple with the portal to the Himalayas. Hawkins plans to take back magic and conquer earth! Morgn has tagged along though. Hawkins pushes Alysha at him, then runs for the temple. Morgan quickly sets the skyship's weapons to fire--and blows up the portal.

Their comrades arrive. Morgan proclaims this a new beginning. Tinder asks what became of Hawkins--the Atlantean armor made him basically invulnerable. Morgan replies he's got a new world to conquer...

Things to Notice:

• Hawkins doesn't seem to think all those superheroes in the DCU will stop his attempts at conquest.

Where it comes from: 
Finally, Morgan gives a response to charges of him abandoning the cause of freedom he sold people on rather than guilt or cynicism. Grell seems to be setting the stage for the Warlord to become a full-fledged hero again.

Variations on a 4-D War

I enjoyed "Day of the Doctor," but the last battle of the Time War seemed a little--prosaic--for a protracted conflict between two ultra-powerful, reality-spanning powers. It got me to thinking about the gaming potential of a Time War, or as Alan Moore had it Doctor Who Weekly: A 4-D War. I've got two ideas.

Version One: 

"'Nowhere' was run by an old sasquatch named Lukashev. Found as a baby at 25,000 feet, he was captured and trained. His youth was spent as part of a super-naut space program along with a chupacabra and a dinosaur from the future."
- Brandon Graham, King City

This version goes full Kirby and quite possible layers on the gonzo. The Time War is strange--and fought by strange combatants with stranger weapons. Lords of Creation probably has some inspiration for this version (it might even provide a system if you could figure out how to play it.).

The combatants might be as starkly good and evil as Silver Age superbeings, or they might be painted in shades of gray with the protagonists (the PCs) cheerfully unconcerned with their superiors' ultimate goals--or even possibly their identities.

Version Two:

"Just remember this: All agents defect, and all resisters sell out."
- Naked Lunch (1991)

Maybe there's no need to be that cynical, but this version is Philip K. Dick by way of John le Carre. The time war is more of a cold war with brief flashes of violence. The weapons are still strange; they just get used less often. Individual agents might be a bit like 007 for a bit, but ultimately they may discover they've become Number 6 and all of spacetime is the Village.

The Agency is shadowy--and may in fact be the same as the Enemy, just at a different point on their timeline. All of this can be grim or even horrific, but it can also be played for satire (think G vs. E, and the relative amorality of Good and Evil in its cosmos).

Version Three:
Or, you could dial both of them back a bit and crash the two together. This is probably the Grant Morrison version (The Invisibles and The Filth would be good inspirations, here). Time agents are eclectic and flamboyant, but not usually Yeti's from alternate timelines. The weapons and battles are psychedelic, but the stakes can be grim, and the moral fog never dissipates--even in higher order dimensions.