Murderhobos, or The Modern Prometheus

Mentzer's BECMI codified the ultimate D&D endgame: apotheosis. The execution might leave something to be desired, but I think the basic idea is a good one. Instead of Immortals waiting to welcome newly ascended adventurers into their pantheon, it might be cooler if they treated godhood as something they didn't particularly want to share. It's got to be taken from them.

The gods are probably too absorbed in their own activities to spend a lot of time actively going after adventures. Probably. But they're certainly not going to make the paths to immortality easy to find, and likely going to put obstacles in the way of adventurers who go after them. The more powerful they get, the more they'll attract the Immortals' attention and be bedeviled by them. Think the sort of things that happened to Hercules and others hunted by the gods in Greek myth.

Immortals as adversaries or obstacles would certainly explain some of the things about dungeons and other adventuring locales. The only problematic detail would be clerical magic. I suppose clerics, empowered by the Immortals, might eventually become adversaries to other adventurers. They would be sort of the gods' check to make sure humans didn't get too powerful. That would be interesting, but maybe too game-changing. Alternatively, clerics might be powered by the fundamental forces of the universe (the same thing that powers the Immortals) and militant humanists bucking the gods by using that power for the good of mankind.

Wednesday Comics: The Price (part 2)

We continue our examination of Jim Starlin's Dreadstar Saga with The Price. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

The Price (part 2)

Eclipse Graphic Album Series #5 (October 1981) Story & Art by Jim Starlin

Synopsis: Lord Papal views Syzygy Darklock as a potential rival and is giving him just enough rope to hang himself. As he explains to Sister Marian, Darklock is quite aware of the Lord Papal's maneuvering. He plans to avenge his brother's murder with the latitude he's been given--and one day supplant the Lord Papal.

Whoever sent demons to kill his brother was probably after Darklock instead. Their auras are similar and that's how demon's track their prey. The demon would have also watched Ajar'l for hours or days before it struck. Darklock goes to his brother's office to pick up the demon's residue. He enter's a mystic trance, using Sister Marian as an anchor to the physical plane, and discovers a name: Bialgesuard.

Darklock plans to summon the demon, something Sister Marian says the Lord Papal wouldn't even attempt alone. Darklock says he's studied more and gained more mystical knowledge than his instructors or the Lord Papal has guessed. He knows he can do it.

Soon, Darklock has everything in readiness. He begins commences the ritual. Then:

Bialgesuard is not happy to have been summoned by a fool priest of a religion of liars. He refuses to serve Darklock or answer his questions. The priest makes him change his mind:

Darklock asks, "Who is your master?"

The demon gives up the name: Taurus Killgaren. Darklock has neve heard of him, but the demon assures the priest that he is a being of vast power. Power vast enough that the Lord Papal kept his existence hidden from the lower echelons of the church to preserve the myth of church omnipotence. Power vast enough that he didn't need a pentagram or hexagram to summon the demon.

To be continued.

Things to Notice:

• The Church Instrumentality is remarkably involved in ritual magic.

Commentary: 
The demon summoning in this issue is much more in the tradition of the ars goetia than the Kirby or Ditko-esque psychedelic scenes that Starlin used to portray magic and magic ritual in earlier works. The demon summoned is in the goetic tradition as well. Baal (possibly the inspiraiton for Bailgesuard's name) is said in goetic works to sometimes appear with the head of a cat.

Strange Stars Samples

Work continues on the Strange Stars guide, but I thought it was time to give a taste of what was to come. Here are a couple of pages (still work in progress, mind you) with layout by Lester B. Portly:

That's the first page of the Vokun Empire spread. Here's the second page of the Alliance section:

More to come.

Ape Days Dawning

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the sequel to 2011's virtually interchangeably titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Fans of that first film will find the sequel does not disappoint. The story picks up 10 after a genetically engineered virus meant to cure Alzheimer's instead kills 90% of the human population and raises the intelligence of great apes. Caesar and his band have been hiding out in the Muir Woods, building a Stone Age society where "ape does not kill ape" and other sensible things, but they again come in contact with humans. Since these films are prequels (or reboots) to the Planet of the Apes series, if you guess conflict with humans is going to disrupt this ape Eden, you would be right.

Anyway go see it. Here are some thoughts I had related to the film, but not specifically reviewish:

1. The whole inadvertently released viral vector origin (at odds with what was presented in the original film series) brings it closer to the origins of the Great Disaster in DC Comics, where the drug cortexin (maybe plus some radiation) leads to anthropomorphic animals of all sorts. You can read about this in Kamandi #16, and the Great Disaster in general in Kamandi and in Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster.

2. The Planet of the Apes world (either the original films or this series) would make a good roleplaying setting. Terra Primate does that, but you could just as easily do it in Mutant Future by toning down the number of mutants and mutations (though the original series suggests you don't need to eliminate it entirely). Over here we've got a the original PotA apes as a race (with sub-races) for Mutant Future. The apes in the new film are more realistic. At the point of Dawn, they all still have the Simian Deformity disadvantage. Speech seems to be a bit difficult (or perhaps just uncomfortable) for them, so they tend to use sign language, and they don't have the manual dexterity of humans either. The subrace system should be ditched, too.

3. A Medieval Planet of the Apes could easily become a dungeoncrawling sort of setting--Beneath already has a dungeon of sorts.  Over at The Land of Nod, John Stater has already thought of this. He gives us "realistic" versions of the original series species for D&D-derived games and a sample dungeon!

Wednesday Comics: Darklock Delay

Don't go summoning demons or anything, but the next installment of my review of Jim Starlin's The Price is going wait until next week.

We Made Our Own

My first foray into "role-playing game design" was a G.I. Joe game. I still have it, but I don't know where it is at the moment, but I remember the basics. It was the mid-eighties, my group had been playing TSR's Marvel Superheroes, and dabbling in universal table-based games. They all made it look so easy.

I think it used attributes similar to FASERIP, though instead of descriptively named levels, it used numbers 1 to 10. The filecards on the back of the G.I. Joe packages (and helpfully collated in one place in the G.I. Joe: Order of Battle limited series put out by Marvel) made it easy to adapt the lists of training and qualified expert rating with various weapons into skills.

We played it on more than one occasion. Enough that I was inspired to make a second game using the same (highly derivative system) based around the Transformers. That was even easier because the Transformers packaging even had abilities and ratings:

I don't think we ever played Transformers. We also never got around to playing the Wrasslin' Roleplaying Game made by a buddy of mine, born from his love of the UWF, and (as I recall) based on roughly the same engine.

Superize Your Fantasy

“Men and women who had worn suits for decades traded punches powerful enough to crush elephant skulls, dodged and deflected attacks too fast for the eye to follow, and died suddenly, often before the crowd registered the killing blow.
Victors and dead men were separated by a blink of the eye.” 
- No Return: A Novel of Jeroun, Zachary Jernigan

Zero-level funnels and slow grinds to hero-hood are all well and good, but there ought to place for adventurers born to perform great deeds with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Something like Masters of the Universe or the non-science fantasy equivalent of Dreadstar or Guardians of the Galaxy.

This isn't necessarily a new idea. Mythology is full of characters with superhuman abilities. Anime does this too--as does that rpg bastard child of mythology and anime, Exalted. But Super Saiyan martial arts is not the only way to go with this. Check out these guys:

This is the League of Ancients (an Atlantis-era superhero team from JLA). You can read about them on the image there, but just as a highlight, the armored guy above is Tezumak, who gets scientific and technology mastery from his smith god. He powers his armor with blood sacrifice.

In summary: Think about ideas that show up in traditional fantasy and crank up the power level. Make sure that characters are distinctive in there powers. Have them do big things.