Infinite Earths

This a diagram of "major divergences" of parallel realities in Mark Gruenwald's A Primer on Reality in Comic Books. Things have only gotten more complicated since 1977.

DC has always had more alternate earths, thanks to their desire to explain away continuity errors by saying they took place in another reality (Marvel No-Prizes were simpler), but then Crisis came and they got rid of them all. After a few more crises, they came back though. Check out a list of them here.

Marvel traditionally had very few and didn't give them number (too DC, I guess). In 1983, Alan Moore and Alan Davis did a story for Marvel UK where the main Marvel earth was given the designation 616. Fans ran with that, and from a throwaway line, Marvel parallel Earths got numbers, too. Find them here. Of course, this probably doesn't catalog all the dystopian alternate futures the X-Men wind up in. Those guys just can't catch a break.

Any, I'm sure all of this can be plenty useful for a superhero game.

Send in the Clones

Orphan Black returned for it's second season last night, and I watched a few episodes of the Netflix-only final season of Clone Wars, so I have clones on my mind. Here are a couple of clone-related campaign ideas:

Art by Julie Baroh

Clones Underground
Dungeon exploration is dangerous business, but lucrative. Some wealthy land, ruled by a wizard (or wizards) might contrive to save on the risk (and potential challengers to their rule) by raising alchemical clones of themselves and their own companions to deliver the treasures to them. Using clones easily allows for replacement of dead characters, and the wizard serves as both patron--and perhaps future adversary.

Dupes
As in "duplicates". Maybe. Mashup the Bourne Identity and Orphan Black and throw it into Night's Black Agents and you've got sleeper clone agents created by an occult conspiracy. The characters must unravel the mystery of their own identity while staying ahead of there pursuers.

Of course, any speculation about vampiric "soul clones" (as put forward by Chuck Loridans, inspired by the events of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires) is left the GM to indulge in at their own discretion.

Plugs, Shameless and Otherwise

Christopher Helton, tabletop gaming writer for the entertainment site Bleeding Cool debuted his first post on self-published rpgs yesterday, shining it's spotlight on Jason Sholtis's Dungeon Dozen, Jack Shear's Planet Motherf*cker, and my very own Weird Adventures. It was great to be asked to participate. The primary result seems to be more traffic to the Weird Adventures Companion post.  All I can say guys is: It is coming, but I have no ETA. I'm planning to get it out the door after Strange Stars.

In other self-publishing news, Anthony Hunter (cartographer for Weird Adventures) has launched Sleeping Griffin Productions. He's putting out layered pdf maps various sorts for personal or small press use. Check them out.

Graustarkian Karameikos

The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is a small nation in the Balkans on the Adriatic Sea. It has a long history going back to ancient times when the Romans built a fort and founded a trading outpost at Specularum--now Karameikos's capital, Spekla. Since those days, Karameikos has been in the hands of a succession of empires: the Byzantine, the Serbian, the Ottoman, and briefly, the Austro-Hungarian.

The current ruler of Karameikos is Stefan III. He has retained the title of "Grand Duke" despite his nation's liberation from Austria-Hungary. Grand Duke Stefan and most of the nobility trace their families back to Byzantium, but rule over an ethnically mixed populace of Albanians and Serbs, as well as Greeks. The predominant religion is the Orthodox Church of Karameikos, though there are also Muslims and a small number of Roman Catholics.

Believed to be the only photo of the leader of the Black Eagle

One of the greatest threats to modern Karameikos is the terrorist group known as the Black Eagle. The group is vaguely related to Albanian nationalism, but its direct aims seem to be criminality and destabilization of the current government. It's leader is named either Ludwig or Henrich. As his name would suggest, he is said to be of Austrian descent. His primary advisor and bomb-maker is believed to be a former monk named Bargle.

The Mad Monk Bargle, while briefly in custody

This post relates to my previous Ruritanian ruminations--and of course to D&D's Known World.

Wednesday Comics: The Meeting

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"The Meeting (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter VI)"

Epic Illustrated #3 (Fall 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: A shot from somewhere takes out two of the Zygotean thugs surrounding him, but Aknaton doesn't have time to think about that. He uses his power against his attackers, but he's not a warrior.

Luckily, a guy shows up who is:

The man exhibits super-strength and Aknaton realizes this must be Vanth. But then where is the sword?

Two of the mercenaries catch up with Aknaton. Vanth again comes to the rescue, but Zygotean reinforcements arrive and surround them both. Vanth drops his gun then raises his hands. He looks as if he might surrender. But suddenly he has a sword in it:

Vanth absorbs the blasts from the Zygotean weapons with the sword, then uses its power to destroy them. Aknaton is impressed. The sword was more powerful than even he expected in Vanth's hands. Even more powerful than he planned:

He asks where Vanth had it hidden. Vanth responds that he didn't hide it. It's a part of him, he can bring out when he needs it. Vanth is about to turn the blade on its creator who he still thinks may be in league with the Zygoteans.

Aknaton assures him he is not. He tells them he has a plan to destroy them, but he needs the help of a warrior to do it. Alone, the the Zygoteans would when, but together they can show the "zyg devils the true face of death."

Things to Notice:

• When he's not destroying planets, Aknaton isn't all that tough.
• "My forte is mass destruction," Aknaton says.

Commentary: 
"Vanth" is the name of a female chthonic figure in Estruscan mythology, who has been associated with the Furies in the past. It's unclear if there is any connection to Starlin's character, but it would be tempting to connect this Vanth to deities of vengeance.

Vanth is very different from the others Aknaton has recruited. Not only is he tough enough to save Aknaton more than once, but he's irreverent and slangy in his speech. In other words, Vanth is a rather standard American hero. It remains to be seen how he will change the dynamic of Aknaton's rather plaint group.

Old School Art That Isn't

Perusing old comic book fanzines, I found some art of the appropriate vintage and a close enough fit for the style that it made me wish Gary and crew had contacted so young or wannabe comics pros for some D&D art. Check these out:

Don Newton, 1976.

Robert Kline, 1969.

Skip Olson, 1971.

Dave Cockrum, 1972.

Ruritanian Rogues

Watching Grand Budapest Hotel yesterday with its farcical criminal doings in a fictional Mitteleuropean country between the two wars got me thinking that such a setting was rife with gaming potential. I suppose "farcical criminal doings" and gaming is a no-brainer, but I mean more the "fictional modern European country in difficult times."

Ruritanian (or Graustarkian, if you prefer) Romance is a genre mostly of swashbuckling adventure set in a fictitious country in Central or Eastern Europe (including the Balkan region). The genre takes it's name from Ruritania, the setting of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), one of the most popular examples of it. (The less common name derives from titular setting of James Barr McCutheon's 1901 novel; Some people reserve "Graustarkian" for a Balkan setting only.) These tales are (mostly, though there are fuzzy borders) differentiated from ones set in your Averoignes, Poictesmes, and Lyonesses by being set in "modern" times (to when they were written--meaning 1880s-1930s, roughly), being in Central or Eastern European locales rather than Western, and being mostly adventure tales rather than fantasy.

Still, Ruritanian Romance is part of the DNA of science fiction and fantasy and by extension D&D and a lot of fantasy gaming. Burroughs's Barsoom tales are mostly Ruritanian Romances transplanted to Mars (and Burroughs wrote a couple of pure Ruritanians: The Mad King and The Rider). More than one fantasy or science fiction novel is a reworking of The Prisoner of Zenda. Dr. Doom's Latveria is totally a Ruritania.

I think what would make a Ruritanian type setting more interesting in gaming is to ditch most of the romance of nobles and hidden monarchs and veer toward the picaresque. Political turmoil and nonsensical locale customs would complicate the lives of the usual "murderhobo." There's also influence of the Ruritanian Romance on the "fantasy of manners" subgenre, which could reasonable be said to include many of Jack Vance's works. The loquacious thugs of Tarantino and Ritchie would seem to good models for adventuring types concerned with underworld manners rather than high society.

Here's what I would envision: A Central European microstate (with a few equally fictitious neighbors) somewhere between 1895-1930, where Vancian rogues burglarize Gormenghastian ruins, while avoiding Kafka-esque bueaucracy, ostentatiously uniformed gendarmerie, and fanatic revolutionaries.

For some fantasy in a Ruritanian sort of setting, check out the The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson, the Johannes Cabal stories and novels by Jonathan L. Howard, and the post-Cold War version in China Mieville's The City and the City.