Strange Stars Unleashed!

We interrupt our usual Wednesday Comics to report the release of Strange Stars in pdf via drivethrurpg/rpgnow. We regular readers have been hearing about this for sometime (and hopefully, anxious awaiting it).  If you're new (welcome!) you can "preview before you buy" with the index to all the posts I wrote on the setting.

The full-color, premium paper soft cover is coming soon--hopefully in the next couple of weeks. The system books for Fate and old school style gaming (Stars Without Number compatible) will be out later this year.

The Baleful Brothers

Art by Medhi

In the latest session of my 5e Land of Azurth game, the PCs were asked by their patron, Mayor Yrrol Gladhand, to look into the disappearance of the vagrant-ambassador of Lardafa the Beggar City and his pet monkey. Gladhand believes the ambassador is being held captive in the red-light district known as the Floating World, by an a new pair of crime lords: the baleful Burly Brothers.

Gladhand directs them to the queen of the Floating World, the mysterious Calico Bonny in her cabaret ship, Queen Azura. No one meets with Calico Bonny, apparently, but the group converses with Fleur, her poised-almost-to-the-point-of-apathy assistant. She confirms the Brothers' power has been increasing, but she doesn't know where they can be found. She suggests they check with one Saltus Tapper, owner of the flatboat gambling den, The Hazard. He's apparently just entered their employ, but owes Calico Bonny a favor.

Making their way across the Floating Worlds' rickety walkways, the PCs visit Tapper's establishment. He admits to entering the Burly Brothers' employ (not wholly voluntarily) and agrees to tell them more, but he's paranoid he's being watched and asks them to come back at closing. The group agrees.

When they return, Tapper tells them the Brothers have taken over a half-submerged prison hulk. He's about to tell them more when three seemingly drunken thugs in the service of the Brothers show up to get their portion of Saltus's take. Waylon the Frox attempts to buddy up to them and convince them that he and his companions are looking for work. Their leader agrees to let the PCs come along.

Walking out along a narrow plank path along the sandbar into the darkness toward the hulk, Erekose is not surprised when one of the thugs tries to sap him from behind. I fight breaks out, with the PCs ultimately leaving the thugs face down in the muck. They steal the money the thugs were carrying to the Brothers. Having taken damage and used some spells, they decide to rest for the evening and return in the morning.

Waylon stays behind to watch. In the night, he sees to large shapes leave the hulk and step numbly for their size down the planks to the floating world, chortling and snickering as they go. They enter The Hazard and soom their is a scream. Waylon realizes they are the Baleful Burly Brothers and they have killed Saltus Trapper.

The Floating World

In today's 5e Land of Azurth session, the PCs will likely venture into the ramshackle flotilla red-light district of Rivertown, known as "The Floating World." Without giving too much away, here's a few of the points they may crawl to:

Queen Azura: Probably the only true ship of the Floating World, it is a multiple level cabaret and the palace of the Floating World's mysterious queen, Calico Bonny. She seldoms gives audiences and most of her interactions with the outside world are mediated by a series of lissome, young representatives, all named "Fleur."

The Hazard: A open-decked flatboat (covered with tarps) that serves as a gambling den, offering mostly dice games and roulette. It's owner is a dwarf named Saltus Tapper, widely known as a cheat.

Rat's Alley: A ramshackle houseboat that serves as a dive bar, tucked close on the port side of the Queen Azura. It often goes unnoticed by visitors, which is probably to their benefit. It's proprietor and bartender is a large and misshapen man named Handsome Sclaug (treat as a half-ogre thief), who hides his face behind an ill-fitting, sack mask.

The Green Fairy: An absinthe den, appointed well enough that it's origins as three lashed together lifeboats topped with a wooden platform is hidden. The center-piece of its barroom is a large, gilded bird cage, wherein is kept an angry and abusive green fairy to whom the hollow-eyed and dissipated staff seem strangely deferential.

Bibliophilia: Often called "The Lamia's Library", this is a serpentine, enclosed structure of dark wood built across series of small watercraft, tightly linked. It is home to a lamia (a female vampire) and her book collection, which is said to contain every volume that exists, save one, and a number which do not exist. The trick of the library is finding a particular volume, as the lamia's shelving system is idiosyncratic in the way that only a mercurial, inhuman immortals could be. Then there is the usage fee. The Lamia long ago foreswore blood (too messy), but now subsists on the truest dreams and secret hopes of her patrons.

Hurly-Burly: An old hulk, half submerged in the river muck and only connected by one oft-flooded plank walkway to the rest of the Floating World. it serves as a prison of sorts, holding folk who transgress against Calico Bonny or the council of proprietors. it has been seldom used in recent years.

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.