Strange Stars W,X, and Y

Over at the Fate SF blog, John Till (author of Strange Stars Fate) is in the final lap of his "Strange Stars A-Z." This week, he's covered:

W for "Woon Academies"
X for the nongendered pronouns "Xe-Xem-Xir"
and Y for a "Yantran Holiday"

Check these out--and the older entries!

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Last Fighter

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

Storm: The Last Fighter (1979)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Martin Lodewijk

In the desert foothills of the Bahamas (the ocean waters had again seeped underground, or either last volume’s flood was very localized), Stom wrestles a deer-like creature to the ground, then he and Ember (Carrots in the last story) cook it over a fire. Storm again tells her about Jupiter’s Red Spot and his journey to the future. His story is met with incredulity by a man who has somehow managed to sneak up on them, riding what looks like a giant, crawling shrimp.

He them to join his troupe; he thinks Storm could be a star attraction. Storm and Ember decline. To persuade the, he opens a wicker basket and releases two bat-insect creatures--flix. Storm jumps the man and puts him in a headlock, but it’s too late:

Storm, too, is fitted with a flix, and the man (Tchell) leads them to meet Master Cush¹ and his Travelling Show of “monsters, marvels, minstrels, and magic.” Cush is immediately impressed with Ember, thinking she’d bring a high price in the East, but when she tells him what she thinks of that idea, he realizes he’ll have to reconsider: Maybe she could be a gladiator?

Cush sees Storm's potential as a fighter. He gives him a tryout against Barledoon², an imposing mohawked gladiator.  Storm surprises Barledoon with his agility and martial arts and knocks the big man down. Cush doesn't know what to make of all this; it looks like acrobatics more than fighting. He calls for swords. Barledoon gets the better of Storm here. Cush tasks Barledoon with turning the acrobat into a fighter.

Over the next few weeks, Barledoon trains Storm in swordsmanship. Whenever he’s not training, he still has the flix on him, and he’s told the telepathic creatures can even sense thoughts of escape! Soon, they seen the walled city of Soamandrakisal³ where they are to perform. The crowds turn out to watch as the troupe parades into town.

That night, Barledoon is chosen to fight the champion of the city in the arena. He seems fatalistic about it, which Storm doesn’t understand, given that Soamandrakisal’s champion looks like a complete amateur. Barledoon takes a drink offered him with Master Cush’s compliments, then enters the arena. Barledoon’s movements are sluggish, and he’s quickly killed.

Storm can’t believe it. Tchell reveals that Barledoon was drugged so he would lose to the city’s champion, so Cush could stay in the good graces of the city’s leaders. Barledoon knew he was going to his death. Storm is so incensed, he knocks the champion down even as Cush is praising the man to the crowd. Storm misses Cush saying the champion will “travel to the Valley of Bones and bring back the power of the Palace of Death.”

Cush tries to stop Storm, but to no avail. The champion gets a drop kick out of the Captain Kirk handbook and is knocked out. The crowd starts to turn ugly. Cush, thinking quickly, tells them that his traveling show acquired Storm and trained him for this moment—to be a worthy champion for Soamandrakisal. The town leaders buy it, and Storm (under threat of Ember’s life) is the new champion. Though he’s given a place of honor the rest of the show, all he thinks about escape.

That night, Cush exhorts his troupe to pack up quickly so they can get out of town before things go bad. They aren't fast enough:

The town father and his retinue of soldiers want to know what will motivate their reluctant champion to complete his task and return to Soamandrakisal with the powers of the Palace of Death. Cush assures him he has a way.

The next morning, the man lays out Storm’s mission—and its potential deadliness to him: He must be Soamandrakisal’s champion and fight against the champions of all the other cities to achieve the throne of the Palace of Death, and Soamandrakisal can rule the world. The man takes Storm on a little walk to a temple:

TO BE CONTINUED

Notes:
1. "Keng" in the 1987 Titan Books English translation.
2. "Karn" in Titan Books.
3. "Kalthike" in Titan Books.

Trigadasleng

So The 100 is back for its third season, again to put CW teens through the ringer in a brutal post-apocalypse (which is really fun to watch, if you haven't seen it). Trigadasleng, the sort of pidgin-sounding language of "the Grounders" (the primitive survivors on Earth that our space station bred protagonists must contend with) is pretty well developed, it turns out.  It was developed by David J. Petersen, the same guy who did Dothraki and Valyrian for Game of Thrones.

Check out this overview of Trigadasleng and this fan made full dictionary. Could be useful for your own post-apocalyptic setting. Gamma World-ese (at least as portrayed in the monster naming) isn't too conceptually different.

Return of Prophet

The far future space opera saga of Prophet, which has been on hiatus since issue 45 (the last of the previous run) in 2014, returned this past week with Prophet: Earth War #1. I've mentioned Prophet here before on several occasions and wrote at least one post about it.

Here's short synopsis: John Prophet (the Extreme Comics character from the 90s) awakens from cryosleep on an Earth dominated by strange alien species in the far future. He must trek across this exotic landscape to find the ancient tower where he can complete his mission. There, he sends a signal to revive the Earth Empire from it's slumber. That signal awakens the Empire's most implacable foe, too--who just happens to be another John Prophet. Each side begins to marshall it's forces, and the conflict seems like to reach its conclusion in Earth War.

You can get the first issue in digital here, but they'll be a trade eventually. I highly recommend it.

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.