Thedabara the Vampire

Here's an excerpt from the upcoming Mortzengersturm, the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak:

Thedabara, former chanteuse, actress, and member of the undead, is most often found in her chamber beneathed Mortzengersturm's manor reclined on her chaise, reading a book of decadent poetry, with a glass of brandy mixed with blood (her preferred way of taking nourishment, these days) in her pale hand. She has grown old in the way of vampires who do not fight back against the dwindling of unlife with ever-increasing wickedness, and so she spends most of her time in repose and reminiscence. Her wickedness is more the kind of self-absorption seen in fading celebrities, made only a little less tolerable by her tendency to violence and blood-drinking if she is not indulged or accorded the deference she feels is her due.

She drinks blood only once every few weeks and finds hunting a bother. She entertains visitors beyond Mortzengersturm (and he is a less than ideal conversational partner, as he is as much an egotist as she), much less often. She will greet any party cordially, perhaps offering them a drink (not carrying that she has no more than 4 glasses). Then with exaggerated gestures and dramatic diction, she will regale them with stories of her past exploits on the stage—so long as they will sit and listen.
It is certainly possible for a party to take their leave of her, without provoking her to petulant violence, but it will take a great deal of care.

Here's Jason Sholtis's old school stats for Thedabara:
HD 9, hp: 48, AC 2 [17] Attk: bite (1d10+ level drain) Special: change form, summon wolves/bats, charm

Wednesday Comics: Storm

The next installment of Storm will start next week. Today, check out some art from the series:

A peak into "The Green Hell," the volume after next.

A transformed Ember amid weirdness in the volume "The Seven of Aromater."

Taxman

Working on my taxes this weekend made me think of this class Weird Adventures post: "Death & Taxes."

Nobody in my game ever ran afowl of the Taxmen. Maybe next campaign.

Blackmoor College for the Adventuring Arts

I've been enjoying The Magicians on SyFy, but between it and Harry Potter, I wonder why magic gets all the good schools? There are three other core classes after all.

I'm envisions a fantasy wainscot in the modern world where kids with aptitudes in any of the adventuring arts get trained to save the world that hates and fears them from the monsters from below. And have a lucrative adult career doing it.

I've mused on modern monster fighting before and the existence of dungeons in the modern world (and so have others), but a school for training adventurers is an angle I had never considered. I think it adds an interesting additional element.

Outlaw Velocipede Gangs of Azurth

art by humei YE

In the eastern plains of the Country of Yanth in the Land of Azurth, there are nomads with an unusual mode of travel. These rovers have tamed giant, fast moving arthopods of an unusual sort: the velocipede (as they are called) possesses not a single leg for locomotion, but instead have wheels in place of the usual limbs. It would be quite appropriate to assume some thaumaturgy is responsible for this state of affairs, though the origins of the velocipede are obscure. The nomads keep the breeding and handling of these beasts likewise cloaked in secrecy, presumably to hold the advantage of velocipede-assisted high speed travel for themselves.

The nomads tend to be dispersed in bands or gangs, typically with some totemic banner to unite them. They accessorize their gang livery with things like horned helmets, long hair, and exuberant mustaches. A boy is not counted a man among them until he has tamed his first velocipede, and a woman who wishes to be respected and viewed as equal is well to do likewise. While it would be unfair to say the rovers are universally bandits or raiders, few are at all adverse to these vocations, and they all look down upon the farming or commerce engaged in by more settled folk. The velocipede riders will sometimes hire themselves out as escorts or mercenaries, at least for a time. They will not kill a bard or minstrel, though they will certainly frighten or tease one whose music doesn’t meet their raucous tastes.

Velocipedes: are large creatures, with ability scores like carrion crawlers, though not the attacks other than bite. Their speed on their 6-10 (depending on size and age) wheels is 50 ft. They have a trampling attack similar to a warhorse. They make sputtering noises like Speed Buggy, which their riders claim to understand.

Children's toy based on stories of Velocipedes, bearing little resemblance to the real creature

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Last Fighter (part 3)

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

Storm: The Last Fighter (1979) (part 3)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Martin Lodewijk

Now in the control room of the Palace of Death (really an alien spacecraft) Storm sits down to see if he can figure out the controls--over the objections of the superstitious Guardian who decrees his actions as blasphemy. Soon, he discovers how to restore power. With safety and all the synthesized food they can eat, the other champions feel like they're in heaven. Storm has conquered the Guardian's god.

He finds them a way out, too. A shuttlecraft:

They survivors fly back to Soamandrakisal. The city folk come to greet them and celebrate Storm's victory for Soamandrakisal, but he brushes them aside. His only concern is freeing Ember.

The vengeful Guardian has other ideas:

Storm hears Ember's cries within the god-thing's maw and realizes she's still alive. While Asverze goes after the treacherous Guardian, Storm impetuously dives in after Ember. He slides down the god's esophagus until:

At first, they think they can wait for those above to throw down a rope, but they've irritated the monster's stomach lining, and its acid production increases. They've got to get out; if they can't go up, they'll have to go downward. Things get sort of weird:

When finally they come to rest, they're in a cave with me trace of He-Who-Must-Be-Fed. They exit the cave and find themselves in the valley surrounding the Palace of Death. Ember wonders what happened, Storm has a kind of farfetched sounding theory:

Before they can hash that out further, the shuttlecraft comes flying over head. The Guardian is at the controls, but Asverze has got him by the throat, trying to kill him for betraying Storm. They crash right into the Palace of Death and it all goes up in a huge explosion. The surrounding mountains are shaken. Storm and Ember get out of the valley just in time before a rockslide closes off the entrance.

Ember sees a heard of dagger-horned deer creatures ahead, and our heroes are pretty much back where they started.

Presidents Days Past (and Future)

It's Presidents Day once again! Check out these classic holiday  related posts:

Delve into the ahistory of the teen president Prez.

Take a look at a trio of sinister presidents who will never be honored.