The City Oroboro

The city Oroboro is a great ring larger than any other city, larger than many worlds.

Philippe Druillet

Everything strange and everything precious is fated to pass through it--and also a great many things that are neither. It is (Ill-)Fortune’s Wheel, the Nexus of All Tales.

Moebius

The city encircles the double-ended Tower, where the Sandmen priests  say the Goddess sleeps and dreams the multiverse. Just beyond the oneiric event horizon, Oroboro is stable (mostly) and rational (sometimes) and permanent--so long as the Goddess sleeps.

Julio Ribera

Some cynics say there is no Goddess and the Tower is empty. To preserve their power, the Sandmen hide the truth: the Architect of All has abandoned creation and is likely to be found in a brothel or ginhouse in Oroboro.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Deep World (part 3)

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Deep World (1978) (Part 3)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Saul Dunn

Surprised by the spider-bats, Carrots loses control of the cart and they crash. All that she and Storm can do is take cover until the swarm passes. At that point, they she Kiley apparently unconscious on the tracks as Ghast approaches.

All is not as it seems though, and Kiley turns to deliver a prodigious kick, derailing the handcart. He and Ghast go at it in a battle of near-superhuman strength. Kiley is winning, but then the tunnel starts to collapse above their heads. Kiley sends Carrots and Storm on to the underground treasure rooms. He stays behind to finish Ghast. Carrots doesn't want to leave him, but Storm pulls her on to keep her from getting herself killed in the cave in.

Inside the treasure room, they find strange machines and a wheel surrounded by symbols on the wall. Storm gets it spinning and an image appears:

Elevator doors open, though Carrots requires some coaxing before she'll step in. Suddenly, Ghast appears wielding Kiley's sword. Before he can attack, a little from one of the machines makes his sword disappear. Storm and Carrots escape into the lift.

Storm pushes a button on the controls. The elevator stops, and the doors open:

Besides the waters, there's an ancient power station. As our heroes are taking in these wonders, the old Mandroid emerges from the darkness. Before he can say why he brought them here, the elevator doors open again and the apparently unstoppable Ghast runs out. The Mandroid blasts him:

Ghast falls against the wall and knocks some rocks lose, unleashing a swarm of hungry, oversized rats. Mandroid tells Storm and Carrots to make for the water and safety. Ghast stumbles after them, covered by rats. For some reason, the Mandroid uses his power ("a laser") to save Ghast.

Leaving him there, the Mandroid leads our heroes back to the treasure room. He begins to fill them in on Earth's history. The immense cavern does indeed contain the waters of the Atlantic. Mankind built an immense wall around the circumference of the earth to contain the oceans and use them to generate power.

Mining for energy researches undermined the walls, causing them to fail, and in their failure, they opened up fissures into the earth. The oceans mostly drained away. Only a few humans were left alive, but other beings came to earth from other worlds.

Mandroid explains that the dynamos here have enough power to restore the oceans. As he explains, Ghast awakens and animated by discussion of "power" runs in and starts pressing buttons--with predictable catastrophic results. Storm, Carrots, and the Mandroid make a run for it as the waters begin to churn:

Ghast follows them to the elevator, but the Mandroid blasts him and leaves him behind. The waters burst through the ground and flood Ghast's city while our heroes watch from the top of the great wall. Soon, the water will top the wall. Storm and Carrots have to get prepared. As to the Mandroid:

Before he goes, he hologram magics our heroes up a raft--somehow:

Polychrome

Our 5e Land of Azurth campaign continued last night, with the PCs at sea in an automata-rowed vessel on their way to the city of Polychrome in the Motley Isles. Their goal was to find the probably-not-kidnapped Gwendolin Goode. Only a few hours away from their destination, they respond to a flag of distress from an unusual barge:

There are only 4 green-haired women on board the ship, claiming to be future wives on their way to a future husband, a potentate of Zoob. The party is suspicious, and these suspicions turn out to be well-founded as the women are revealed as harpies. A battle ensues, and all the harpies lose their lives. The party cuts off their heads in the hope that this proof of their bloody-handedness will prove their bona fides to the pirates in Polychrome.

After haggling with the harbormaster over docking fees, they make their way to a tavern called the Pale Whale. It turns out that buying a round of drinks for everyone is more impressive than brandishing harpy heads. The barmaid tells them the first mate of the Vixen (Black Iris's ship) happens to be there in the bar.

Art by Yuriy

Kully strikes up a conversation with the half-drunken Hara (Rabbit Folk) named Rarebit Finn. Rarebit reveals he was jealous of the relationship between his captain and "the young land lubber," and angry that she seemed to be influencing the captain to turn from piracy. In anger, he dangled "tales of a trinket" in front of them, so they went out to look for this treasure on the Candy Isle, one of the infamous islands in the Chain of Fools.

Kully is less successful in getting Finn to join them, but the inebriated sea-dog promises to think about it and give answer in the morning. The party goes back to inform Cog and beginning preparing the ship for the journey the soon expect to embark on.

Select Contents of a Wizard's Spice Cabinet

Here's a excerpt from Mortzengersturm, The Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak: unusual items found in the wizard's kitchen:

Demonlander ground hellpepper in a smoked glass, stoppered vial. The hottest pepper in the known realms. It has a burnt smell, and even sniffing it will slightly irritate the nose.

Slow thyme sprigs in a lidded wooden vial. Slows (as spell) the person consumes it briefly to enhance the pleasure of a meal. In high doses (like all the sprigs in the container) it can keep a dying person from passing from the mortal plane for 2-12 rounds.

Troglopolitan memory bulbs in a wooden box. Pale yellow fungal bulbs from Subazurth. For most they have a light flavor of nostalgia and evoke a memory of home; for a few, they have the slight, hops-like bitterness of mild regret and bring to mind a thing left long undone.

Baroque Space: Brethren of the Belt

The Brethren of the Belt is the somewhat lofty name the pirates of the asteroids use to describe their outcast society. It suggests a certain honor among these thieves, and those who claim the rights of brotherhood must also adhere to a certain code of conduct: No member may  rob or cheat another, loot must be apportioned by established rules, and no captain may command without being elected by the crew.

Though these buccaneers may range the whole of the known cosmos, they most commonly lying in wait amid the strewn rubble of an ancient world betwixt Mars and Jupiter, destroyed for its iniquity. They harry trade between Earth and Mars and hunt treasure craft going the domain of the King of Jupiter to the inner planets. Their base is the planetoid of Ceres, a barren rock where pirate law is the only law, riddled with crooked tunnels lined with alehouses, inns, and brothels.

At Last! Strange Stars Fate Softcover Available

After a couple of proofs and some corrections (included in the updated pdf) Strange Stars Fate by John Till is finally available at rpgnow/drivethrurpg. Reserve your copy today!

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Deep World (part 2)

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Deep World (1978) (Part 2)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Saul Dunn

After passing the red-haired woman, Storm is taken to the upper levels of the prison where strangely Ghast appears to have his throne room. He allows Storm to test his strength against him; Storm is no match.

Ghast has no idea what an ocean is and quickly tires of Storm asking about it. He crushes Storm's space helmet in his bare hands to show how little he's concerned with Storm's questions. He's got questions of his own:

Ghast is not pleased with that response and Storm ends up in the lowest level of the dungeon with no food or water--but he does have the red-head he saw before as a companion. She's mistrustful, thinking he might be a spy for Ghast, and doesn't believe his story about oceans and other worlds, either. Her name is Carrots, and she comes from the lands beyond the Wall that Ghast is so eager to know about. Eventually, she decides to trust him so they can both escape.

They don't have to wait long for a chance. A thin, reed whistle sounds from outside and Carrots responds with a whistle. She says it's "Kiley."

That night, Kiley pulls the bars out of the window with a rope and Carrots and Storm escape, though Ghast's men aren't far behind. Kiley stays behind to hold them off, sending the other two on to "the Dive": a tavern where others of Carrots people are waiting.

Storm is greeted with mistrust, but Kiley arrives and tells them he has gotten reports of a machine (Storm's spacecraft) and knows Storm is the man that arrived in it. Carrots is still skeptical the machine can fly, but they agree to accept his help against Ghast.

The escape route for Carrots, Kiley, and Storm is via an underground river. They swim to room that acts as an airlock. Storm is surprised to learn that they have electricity; Kiley explains that they are more advanced than Ghast's city. He leads them to a waiting craft:

Unfortunately, Ghast and his men have found the dive and the trapdoor. They make it to the railway, but most of Ghast's men perish in the explosion caused by the control panel Kiley boobytrapped. Ghast survives, though, and finds a hand cart to continue the pursuit. Then:

Spider-bats!

TO BE CONTINUED