Wednesday Comics: Crom the Barbarian

Comics' first Swords & Sorcery hero was Gardner Fox's Crom. The name might suggest he was heavily Conan inspired, but no--oh, I can't even... Yes, he was pretty much a blond, Comics Code approved, Conan knockoff.

But hey, now you can read these 65 year-old, four-color, fantasy epics through the miracle of the modern internet.:

Crom's first appearance was Out of This World Comics #1, which doesn't appear to be only, but it was reprinted in the pulp magazine Out of This World #1 which is. He next shows up in the tale "The Spider God of Akka" in Strange Worlds #1. His third, and final swing of the sword in in Strange Worlds #2 in "The Giant from Beyond."

The Search

While I wouldn't call it a holy grail or anything, Aaron Allston's Lands of Mystery (1985) is a gaming book I have been looking for for a while--at a price that wasn't exorbitant. I finally snagged a copy this weekend, but I haven't got a chance to read it yet.

We live in an age where the internet makes obscure or forgotten bits of gaming literature easier to find than every before (though it still isn't always easy), and the same internet makes chance of finding a gem for a steal at some local used book store or comic book store is actually less than it used to be. There still a small since of achievement when you check one of the wishlist.

Anybody out there got any lost bit's of gaming history they've been looking to acquire for ages?

In Doom's Wake Autopsy

Art by Jez Gordon

This weekend, I ran the piratical/Sargasso Sea adventure I've been going on about for a group I've never really gamed with: my girlfriend's regular group and a friend of her's from work. This was most of the group's first time playing 5e--indeed, several's first time playing D&D in years.

In brief, it was a large (7 members) and eclectic party, with two gnome spellcasters, a human cleric, a dragonborn fighter, a human fighter, a halfling thief, and a aquatic elf bard. They were drawn into the adventure by the promise of reward and the desire to save kidnapped children after a pirate assault on the coastal town of Raedel.

While overall, I intended to play the pirate's and their layer for a degree of horror, the broadly played miserliness and cowardice of Raedel's town fathers probably started things off on a humorous tone, as did the Rabelaisian portrayal of the alcoholic sea dog, Saltus Crimm, who took care of the sailing in the PC's borrowed pursuit ship.

Pretty much what Saltus Crimm looked like

Some of the player's were inclined to sympathy with the pirates, after hearing the legends regarding Ylantha and meeting the townsfolk. I had expected either a murderhobo indifference to morality but keen interest in treasure or a heroic desire to save innocents (or a mixture of the two) to motivate, but hadn't counted on the PC's possibly wanting to reach a settlement with the pirates. Of course, this sympathy didn't stop them from slaughtering pirates at every opportunity, so I don't know if an alliance was ever a real concern.

The crowd coming from mostly a non-D&D background had at least one interesting effect. There was no real dungeoncrawling-style investigation motivated by greed. They wisely avoided places where the danger to reward ratio seemed too high, but thorough searching for hidden treasure wasn't typically on their minds. I probably should have dangled some relatively easy to find items in front of them to condition them to look rather than assuming seeking out material reward would be a goal.

Something I noticed in my regular 5e game was well on display here: the 5e blaster cantrips make magic-using classes pretty tough in ranged combat. An encounter where the ranges were a hindrance to both the pirates and the fighters with light crossbows was like a shooting gallery for the warlock with an eldritch bolt. The large size of the party meant the opponents were never really able to concentrate their fire on the wizards, either. If I run the adventure again (or complete it with that crew), I thing a few more pirate spellcasters are in order to make it a more even fight.

Overall, I think the group enjoyed it and I know I did. It was both a fun session and a good test-drive of the scenario.

A Strange Sargasso Sea Appendix N

How's that for narrow focus? I've done a nautical fantasy inspiration list before, but that's no reason not to focus on a particularly weird subgenre.

Literature:
William Hope Hodgson has got a whole series of Sargasso Sea stories beyond his famous novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig."  Here's "The Thing in the Weeds," "The Finding of The Graiken," and "From the Tideless Sea" online.
Kenneth Robeson. The Adventures of Doc Savage: The Sargasso Ogre.

Film:
The Lost Continent (1968).

TV:
Jonny Quest (1964), "The Mystery of the Lizard Men."

Roleplaying Game Stuff:
Dungeon #141, "The Sea Wyvern's Wake."
Islands of Terror (1992) for the Ravenloft campaign setting.

All in the Family

The monstrous crone that was once a pirate queen broods beneath the decks of her decaying flagship, Doom's Wake. Her many descendants, mutated by demonic taint, carry on their grandam's murderous trade:

Art by David Lewis Johnson

Perdita

Daring and cunning, she would also be beautiful if not for her green-scaled skin and the barbels drooping from the edges of her upper lip. Stats: As Bandit (Pirate) Captain, with the  +1 AC in light armor and swimming and climbing rates of the Mariner Fighting Style.

Squalo

His broad nose, gray skin, and finned head recall a shark--but no more so than his wide mouth full of serrated, triangular teeth. He is vicious, but is not as smart as Perdita and knows it. Stats: As a Sahaugin, but without shark telepathy or claws. Besides his bite, he wields a cutlass as a weapon.

"Handsome" Blut

Scarred, pale, hulking brute in a featureless wood mask, beneath the mask his mouth is a lamprey-like sucker with a circular array of teeth. Stats: As Berserker but with a bite attack like a Vampire Spawn, but necrotic damage and drain like a Wight's life drain attack.

Wednesday Comics: Escape from Apelantis

"Escape from Apelantis"

Weirdworld #2 (September 2015), Written by Jason Aaron; Art by Michael Del Mondo

Synopsis: Arkon, Lord of Warlords, has been captured by sea-dwelling ape-men and imprisoned in their underwater city of Apelantis. They've taken his dragon and his map. Arkon vows to escape, but it isn't clear how he's going to accomplish that.

Then, he finds there's another prisoner in the adjoining cave. The other prisoner knows a way to get out, but he can't do it alone. Arkon is in. The other prisoner introduces himself by breaking down the wal between the cells:

The two manage to bust out of the underwater city, but lose Arkon's map in the process. Warbow tells him not to worry. He's got a map. If Arkon helps him free his Prince he will give it to him.

Meanwhile, the dragon Arkon was riding has been delivered to Baroness Morgan le Fay is her castle. She plans to break the beast to saddle:

It's going to be a challenge.

When she flies out, Warbow and Arkon sneak into the castle by crossing a lava moat. They make it into the treasure room, where they discover Warbow's Prince Crystar.

Arkon realizes Warbow is completely insane. And then, they're surrounded by magma men.

Commentary:
The presence of Warbow is an unexpected surprise. He was one of the characters in Marvel's short-lived  1983 comic tied in with a Remco toyline, The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior. Unlike most Marvel tie-in comics, this series was created and owned by Marvel.

The Crystar link connects the magma men here with that world as well, rather than Marvel's pre-existing lava men.

The Legend of the Pirate Queen

Art by Jez Gordon

Across the towns and villages of the Snarr Marsh they celebrate the death of the Pirate Queen Ylantha. From Grymchurch-On-Sea to Hobbsend, they commemorate the day when the folk of Old Raedel ended her reign of terror. They tried the dread pirate and burnt her at the stake for her crimes as she, unrepentant, spat curses at them. They left what charred remains their were of her for crabs to fight over on Perdition Reef. Never again would any pirate be so brazen nor as daring she.

There are other stories, not much repeated in Snarr Marsh, which tell a somewhat different version. They say that Ylantha only fell into the hands of the Raedel-folk through treachery. She was betrayed by the very town which had once fenced her plunder and grown prosperous, thereby. These stories say the pirate queen called out to ever dark god she could name for vengeance as she died, and one ancient sea demon was roused by her call.

The ancient goddess pulled the burned and mutilate body of the pirate queen down to the Demon Sea, where she lovingly remade her. And when she was done, she sent the pirate queen back into the world to again menace the seas with demonic powers at her command. That is the other tale. The one you will seldom hear in Snarr Marsh and never in the new town of Raedel that grew up after the ocean claimed the Old.


A little set up for the piratical adventure I'm running this weekend for a group that's never played 5e and wanted to give it a try.