Three Rivertown Criminals

Honest Jon
If you need something illegal, not quite legal, or just not something to be inquired about in polite company, then Honest Jon may well be of assistance to you. He also specializes in finding a buyers for items of complicated provenance. All for a fee, naturally.

Calico Bonny
She is the Queen of the Floating World, and her palace is the only true ship among it's ramshackle flotilla, the Queen Azura. Bonny is never seen (though she is rumored to have met the Princess), but conducts her business through a succession of lissome girls all called "Fleur." No new gambling barge or pleasure boat opens without her approval. And the Queen always gets her tithe.

Art by Dan Norton

Mapache "Cleanhands" Took 
There is no "raccoon thieves' guild" in Rivertown. The very notion is absurd. Even if there were (which of course, there most certainly is not), it's ringleader and mastermind wouldn't be a shabby, gentleman of the road like our Mapache Took. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

Wednesday Comics: Strangers in the Night

"Strangers in the Night"

Artesia #3 (March 1999) Story & Art by Mark Smylie

Synopsis: Night falls over the battlefield and something strange is in the air. Artesia tells her troops that the door to the underworld has been opened; it is not their goddess Djara and her companions, but the Wild Hunt that roams this night. She tells the warriors to stay close to the ghost heads--heads of the fallen placed on stakes--tonight: One ghost will ward against another.

Artesia rides out to warn the scavengers they've seen among the fallen.

She finds they are not human but hathaz-ghul. They can't be harmed by mere iron, but Artesia's rune-inscribed sword is something different. She's only just defeated them and finished off her dying horse, when she feels it coming. She runs for the ghost wards, but:

She boldly tells the master of the Wild Hunt that he has one night given to him by Yhera, and this is not it.

But Artesia has already chosen sides.

Her spirits rebuke the Master of the Hunt to be gone. Artesia has been claimed by another. "Ah, the heart of war, After so long." the huntsman says. "I am glad."

He departs, leaving Artesia to wonder who it is that can banish the Wild Hunt. Then, she's distracted by the cry of the dying Dymas. He explains that he had to change sides because his king told him to. He would never side with the Knights of Agall and the other outlanders, though. He worries that the death guides have not come, that the souls of he and his men will be lost.

Artesia reassures when that they will keep the vigil for his journey. Their prayers will give his soul 7 days to find their way. Then, they come. And Dymas sees them.

Artesia says her prayers to Geniche, goddess of the Underworld. Though she is afraid, she looks the goddess in the face:

Artesia flinches from the bright light, and then the goddess is gone--along with the souls of the dying.

Her troops find her their in the morning. They tell her three outlanders slipped by the pickets last night. Artesia sees the ones they speak of approaching. They say they have come to the highlands to find a woman: a woman captain, once a king's concubine. A woman born in the lowlands, but come to the Highlands. A witch like her mother.

Artesia embraces her brother, Stjepan.

Things to Notice:

• With his recitation of the rumors about her, Stjepan relates a lot of Artesia's backstory.

Commentary: 
The Wild Hunt, which appears in this issue, is a well-known European myth, with the Master of the Hutn varying, depending on the culture. The corpse-consuming hathaz-ghul are inspired by the Arabic ghul (ghoul).

Yanth Cartography

The map above by Gus L of The Dungeon of Signs is of the Country of Yanth in the Land of Azurth. Gus has faithfully reproduced the style of the Orrey Blundur, Royal Cartographer to King Cyan of Azurth. As is custom following the Bichromatic Compromise, the Country of Yanth is colored yellow. Mundy was a practitioner of artistic cartography, favoring a aesthetically pleasing arrangement of feature over accurate representation. The geography of Azurth has never been quite as settled as it is in other lands, so this is perhaps not as great a failing as it might seem.

Blundur is rumored to have disappeared into a trap street he inserted into a map of the Sapphire City the week before, then subsequently discovered in the real world.

Slumbering Ursine Dunes

The Kickstarter for Slumbering Ursine Dunes will be coming to an end on October 14, so if you haven't got in on it yet, time is drawing nigh. I've been a backer since the day the Kickstarter began. While I'm sometimes iffy about rpg kickstarters (their track record isn't great), I know any reader of the Hill Cantons blog knows that Chris has been a critic of kickstarters in the past, and he and the Hydra Collect have done everything right with this one--like having the product actually mostly finished before starting the kickstarter.

Now knowing the guys involved and having played in the Hill Cantons G+ campaign in the past, I do not pretend any review I would give of Dunes would be entirely object. (If you're looking for probably a more objective one than mine, Gus L has given us one.) I can tell you while I like it and why I think it exemplifies what is good about DIY gaming products, in general.

First off, Dunes takes place in Chris's very flavorful and original campaign world, the Hill Cantons. The Cantons is one of those rich, long-running D&D that most of us wish we had, but don't have the discipline to pull off. The Hill Cantons is pulp fantasy setting, less Howard or Lovecraft, and more Vance and Leiber, infused with a strong Slavic flavor. It manages to avoid the "learning curve" problem associated with settings like Tekumel or Glorantha, while managing to be distinct from the Forgotten Realms also-rans. Dunes mixes bear gods and alien technology and makes it all fit together with a large amount of wit.

If that weren't enough, it's written in such away that it's easy to tweak or remove the Hill Cantons elements (great as they are) so that you can make it your own. Anthony (Straits of Anian) Picaro is adapting it to his fantasy Pacific Northwest (and that's going to be available through the Kickstarter to backers at some levels). I think I'm going to use it as the basis of my annual Weird Adventures Yule Special. It's going to be the inspiration and framework for a tale of combining Father Yule, Ruthenian Bear Folk, and the aftermath of the Weird Adventures version of the Tunguska event. It's robust enough to be what works best for you campaign.

So back it, already! The Kickstarter ends Wednesday.

Strange Stars Update and Contents

The Strange Stars systemless setting book is almost done! Here is the list of contents, and the likely order they will be in:

History
Categories of Sophonts
Starships & Travel
The Alliance
The Coreward Reach
The Vokun Empire
The Outer Rim
The Zuran Expanse
Psi & Psionics
Nomads
Pirates
Criminals

The book looks to be on schedule to come out late this fall. John "FATE SF" Till has the Fate Sytem Book virtually complete in draft, but having been focused on the setting book, I'm lagging on the Stars Without Number adaption, and both still need proofing and layout. I don't want to delay the setting book, though, so we're looking at a staggered release, with the system books following (hopefully) in a couple of months.

Azurthite Bestiary: Bugbear Nightmare

In dark places where nightmares thicken and curdle, bugbears are born. They're gangling things with burning coal eyes that stare out of snarled fur, black and featureless as the night sky between the stars. They haunt abodes of fear and shadow: abandoned houses, ancient ruins, sunless forests; they even squeeze into the recesses of children's closets and the forgotten world glimpsed in the gaps between floorboards. Any dark corner is a door to a bugbear. They crawl out with great sacks clutched in their spider-fingered hands. Snickering, murmuring, they snatch up children and small folk in their sacks and kill those who try and stop them. They drag the children back to their damp, subterranean otherworld, and what happens there is best not discussed.

Besides (one presumes) their kidnapped victims, bugbears subsist on such inedible provender as glass shards, potash, and the heads of rabid bats. They consider certain venomous toads an utter delicacy.

Azurthite bugbears are statted like regular 5e bugbears with the following differences:

Skills Stealth +6

Special Abilities:

Plastic. Bugbears can squeeze through spaces as small as 1 inch.

Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, a bugbear can hide as a bonus action.

Sunlight Weakness. In bright sunight, bugbears have a disadvantage to attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.

Wednesday Comics: Black Sun Rising

"Black Sun Rising"

Artesia #2 (February 1999) Story & Art by Mark Smylie

Synopsis: Artesia awakes from a dream--a portend, perhaps--of her mother being burned at the stake, telling her daughter to join her. It is morning. Artesia rises from between her two slumbering bedmates to greet her lieutenants. Some of the force have left them over night, but others have rallied to her, unwilling to accept the Divine King over the goddess Yhera.

She summons spirits to help her dress for battle. They whisper that their mothers, the goddesses of war are eager for the feast to come. Once dressed, she turns to deal with her bedmates--assassins sent by Bran. She awakens them from the magical sleep she put them under and tells them they have one chance to go for their daggers:

The assassins dead, Artesia and her company head for the field of battle. Besides their original foes, the knights of Agall and those that deserted them over night are under Bran's wolf banner--now arrayed against them. Artesia orders their own wolf banner taken down. They will only use black banners to match the black sun of Irré:

Artesia gives her troops a rousing speech. They must turn against their king because he's betrayed their land and their goddess to usurpers. The coming of Irré is a good omen for them. The speech works, and the battle is joined.

She uses her magic to cause panic and slays several Agall Knights herself. In the end, Artesia's enemies are routed, but after such an unnatural day, she fears the night to come.

Things to Notice:

• Like more than one hero, Artesia had sex with the assassin(s) before killing them. Priorities.

Commentary: 
Smylie's Known World is an interesting mix of historic sources, but the gods and goddess seem mostly Ancient Greek inspired. The name of the Known World's Queen of Heaven, Yhera, clearly shows its derivation from the Greek Queen of Heaven, Hera. Irré the Black Sun, is a sun god, but mostly has the negative aspects of Apollo's portfolio (he is the god of plagues, for instance), while his brother, Illiki Helios gets the more positive aspects. Besides the Greek elements, the two seem to borrow from Egyptian myth: the bull aspect of Illiki is reminiscent of the Atum-Ra, and the relationship between the brothers resembles myths related to Osiris and Set.