Weird Cosmoses

The Baroque Space setting I've been occasionally posting on of late draws inspiration from a number of different sources. Here are two I've come across recently that are well worth checking out for rpg inspiration:

I got Brass Sun: The Wheel of Worlds for Christmas. Edginton and Culbard bring us a science fantasy (originally appearing in 2000AD) set in a world that's essentially a giant orrery. It's brass sun starts to die and a young girl has to go on a quest across the worlds to find the key to restart it.

Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle is an alternate history hard science fiction novel--though the science is the science of Aristotle! A thousand years after Alexander, the super-powers of Greece and the Middle Kingdom of China are in a protracted war. A scientist from the Delian League commands a daring expedition to fly a spacecraft built from a piece of the Moon through the crystal spheres to get the ultimate weapon, a piece of the elemental fire of the Sun, to defeat the Taoists once and for all.

Famous Pirates of Baroque Space

Here are four aether pirate captains:

Gryff Scurlock of the Picaresque. He boasts (without providing substantiation) of having observed the secret rituals of the Venerian women. He wears a pegleg of Jovian air leviathan tusk since he lost his limb to the poison bolts of the clockwork savages of America Meridionalis.

Horst von Eschenbach, captain of the Black Hart and rogue alchemist. He is said to have once eluded an Angel of Death in the rings of Saturn.

Anya de Winter of the Fata Morgana, said to be the greatest swordswoman of her age. Her eyes are mismatched, one hazel and the other blue like comet ice, though this has not always been so.

Jesus Amarante Zoto, master of La Cazadora, scourge of the Mars-Earth tradeways. He keeps the still-living head of his brother Joaquin in a nutrient vat so he may consult him when needed.

Wednesday Comics: Ubermensch!

This post my be cheating a bit on the Wednesday Comics mission statement, but hopefully it will be of interest to the comics crowd.

I've generally found superhero prose lackluster, at best, and superhero themed prose anthologies are even more of a mixed bag that most anthologies. Even the Wild Cards series with its interesting alternate history universe has its share of clunkers. I can't vouch for the whole anthology, but Super Stories of Heroes & Villains includes one of my favorite superhero short-stories: Kim Newman's alternate fictional history story, "Ubermensch!"

As the name might suggest, "Ubermensch!" is the story of a German Superman, a Nazi Superman--and the Jewish Nazi hunter who comes to kill him. Along the way, it drops hints at an alternate history informed by German cinema and pulp fiction where Berlin is a futuristic city called Metropolis, and the Ubermensch's enemies are Graf Orlock, Dr. Mabuse, and Rotwang. There are annotations here--but read the short story first, lest you deprive yourself of the pleasure of discovering the easter eggs on your own.

There is also this award-winning short film based on it, though they remove a lot of the references that enrich the backstory:

Azurthite Bestiary: Moon Goon

Moon Goons get their name from their heads or masks, large, round, and faintly luminous like the Moon, and their vile behavior. The Moon Goons avoid the real moon, only striking when it is new. Their spindly, bone-white limbs are animated with odd gestures and faintly aglow despite the lack of moonlight. They are forever mumbling and conversing, but their lips never move and their speech is unintelligible.

They arrive in balloons--or what look like balloons--but their gondolas are slung from metal spheres with the appearance of lead. The spheres are hollow, and no one knows from where they derive their buoyancy nor what propels them forward. Perhaps the Moon Goons know, but they don't say. Each gondola carries 2-3 moon goons. They arrive in groups of 2-4 balloons.

They prey on small, isolated villages or farms. The items that interest them are often not particularly valuable at all--at least not in the strict monetary sense. Sentimental value seems the be the primary quality evident in the things they steal.

Moon goons try to put the humans they rob to sleep with the silvery metallic rods they carry. The slumber the rods produce sleep plaqued by weird nightmares. Humans that prove resistant to their rods or harm one of the moon goons raiders, may find themselves on sharp end of their scalpel-like knives.

MOON GOON
medium aberration, neutral evil
AC 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 22 (4d8+4)
Speed: 30 ft.
STR 11(+0) DEX 13(+1) CON 12(+1) INT 13(+1) WIS 12(+1) CHA10(+0)
Skills: Stealth +6
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11.
Languages Understands any language but don't speak any of them

Magic Resistance. A Moon Goon has an advantage against spells and other magical effect.

Actions:
Rod. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, one target in a 30 foot range. Hit: On a failed DC 12 Constitution save, the target falls to sleep.
Scalpel-like Knife. Melee Weapon Attack. +4 to hit, 5 ft. reach, one target, Hit: 1d8.

The Planetary Spheres

I posted this on G+ a few days ago, but I thought I should share it here, as well...

There are seven spheres whose aetheric densities allow them to be reached by the technology of Man. With the Earth as our reference point, the planets can grouped thusly:

The Postlapsarian Worlds, thither went the Nephilim and the Atlanteans following the Deluge:

Saturn: Ringed with the petrified and crumbling corpses of titans and monsters. A rebellious demiurge imprisoned in its litharge-colored mists.

Jupiter: The peripatetic court of the most convivial of monarchs in continual celebration. Visitors glide down from the several moons on bat wings to hunt giant beasts in a sea of endless, variegated storm clouds.

Mars: Empires clash, and machine brains compute the scientific perfection of eternal war.

There was once another world between the spheres of Mars and Jupiter, but the iniquity of its people destroyed it.

The Prelapsarian Worlds, closer to the Sun and the Demiurge that dwells within:

Venus: Torrid jungles and vast, shallow oceans. Strange and beautiful plant women.

Mercury: Blazing court of the heliocephalic Emperor, a Philosopher-King.

Luna: The pallid, coralline gardens and laboratories of the Fair Folk. The fae themselves, ashen, luminous, and moth-winged, and their insectoid Selenite servants.

Have You Seen These Aliens?

I had hoped I wouldn't be doing another Strange Stars update because it would be in your hands by now, but at least I cane report the final round of proofreading is complete, and Lester is making the requisite changes as I write this.

Assuming the submission process to rpgnow goes smooth (and for pdf, at least, it usual does), it is very close.

Here's one last page to whet your appetite.

Wednesday Comics: A Bronze Age Alphabet

Back in 2009, I did a series of posts for the blog of my friend Jim Shelley called "A Bronze Age Alphabet." Inspired by articles like "A Secret History Alphabet" by Kenneth Hite, it actually didn't deal with any actual Bronze Age alphabet, but instead an alphabet of the Bronze Age of Comics.

I should warn you that it's still incomplete. One day, maybe.

Part 1: A to G

Part 2: H to L

Part 3: M to P

Part 4: Q to U