A Tale of Vo

The Vale of Vo looks pretty enough, but that is because the carnage is invisible. The valley is a demiplane or pocket dimension bound by two tall mountains and a ring of hills. Its small stands of forest and orchards of fruited tress are divided and crossed by cobbled paths and clear brooks and streams; a bucolic tranquility only visibly marred by the strange craft that has crashed awkwardly across it's middle, leaving a scar in its wake. The vessel, too, was injured in its arrival; its torpedo shape is broken along is width, leaving two colorful, enameled chrome sections: nose and tail.

Art by Al Williamson. The ship before the crash, perhaps.

No inhabitants are visible in the Vale of Vo, because every animal in the valley is invisible. They are made so by eating the fruit of the trees: the dama-fruit. The dama-fruit is roughly tear-drop shaped and a pinkish color striped with yellow-green. It's flesh is like a papaya's in texture and tastes something like a grape mixed with a apple with hints of fond childhood memories and notes idle summer days. Consuming of most of one fruit will make a man-size creature invisible for 2d6 hours. Regular consumption of the fruit (at least 5 days) will lead to invisibility for 2d4 days after the last fruit was eaten.

The inhabitants of the valley have had to adapt to this condition. Bats have filled the niche of birds, and some of these sing eerie songs in the dappled tree canopies. The primary predator, the dread bugbear, uses smell to find its prey--which is an imperfect method, but good enough to make the bugbears a great threat to the vale's human denizens.

The humans call the bears "bugbears" because they are something out of nightmares, but also because they make an at-first-faint hissing, buzzing, rustling, droning sound that reminds one of insects, but in truth sounds more like mostly-static on a radio. If one was the stand near a bugbear for long enough (this would not be advisable) one might come to discern a tone behind the surface noise that swells and subsides, and this might precede a low, warped, and crackling voice or voices that would be near unintelligible (if truly there at all) but might repeat numbers or nonsense phrases before being swallowed again by the tone and the noise. Sometimes the voice (or voices) is said to cut sharply and suddenly into the static and to say something with great insistence but no greater clarity.

The occurrence of the voice has lead one group of humans in the Vale to assume the bears are gods or at least speak for the gods. These are the Vozerai. More on them tomorrow.

[freely adapted from Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum]

The Paper Town of Azurth

Paper Town (it is said) in some sense occupies space in the Uncanny Valley in the west of the Country of Yanth, but the most reliable way to gain entry to the town is via a map. Potentially any map will do, but it must be one noting a nonexistent settlement, street or island. These fictitious entries serve as gates to Paper Town.

As is common with magical places, gaining entrance is not as simple as finding a suitable map. Luckily, the legend regarding Paper Town's creation delineates the necessary procedure. Paper Town, as the story says, was a gift given to Princess Hyacinthia of Azurth on the occasion of her birthday by a mysterious stranger. He informed the Princess that she could not visit Paper Town in person, being compose of something other than paper and possessed of general lack of flatness as she was, but her shadow could—with the proper attire. The stranger traced the outline of the Princess’s shadow on a large sheet of paper and cut around its edge. The cutout was taken to a place where the stranger’s map showed a hamlet to be but was not. The cutout vanished, like a piece of paper slid under an unseen door into an equally unseen room.

The fact Hyacinthia never regain her shadow nor have many who have repeated this ritual might give some pause, but that detail is not frequently repeated.

In Paper Town, the cutouts become paper doll doppelgängers of the person that served as their model. These visitors find unfolding streets of pop-up trees and citizenry and flat facades that elaborate to Escher-architectured structures when entered. The city seems endless, but the clever observer will note that it recycles itself to appear so. As the preceding portion grows, the receding part folds up behind. This can happen in any direction: Tall towers erect themselves when an evil sorcerer flies up to his sanctum. Dungeons unfold like inverted houses of cards when heroes go delving. The ostensible ruler of Paper Town, Princess Seven, paper doll of the long dead Queen Hyacinthia, makes the final decision on how "permanent" a new structure is in her city.

One attractive trait of Paper Town is that it conforms to a visitor's imagination in certain ways. Anything one wishes for may be found there, though anything of value is likely to require a quest or be obtained in a way that makes one not want it after all. In other words, Paper Town adheres to laws of story.

The archons or godlings that truly rule Paper Town enforce this reality zealously. These Great Tall Tailors, or Scissor Men as they are sometime called, will catch paper doll visitors who are ill-fitted for the story the Tall Tailors wish told and snip, snap, snip, reshape them into a more pleasing arrangement. The Tall Tailors are paper themselves (Or perhaps they are the shapes left when slender, lank-limbed manshapes are cut of paper?) save for their gleaming, scissor hands. Their shadows are also Tailors but their shadow-scissors cut the spirit exclusively while their metallic doubles cut the physical.

It is said that the Book of Doors, a book where every page is a portal to another place, originated in Paper Town, but how it came to be in the wider Land of Aurth is unknown.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Battle for Earth (part 3)

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

Storm: The Battle for Earth (1980) (part 3)
(Dutch: De Strijd om de Aarde)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Dick Matena

Solon has come to offer Storm help, saying he can show the humans a way into the city of the Azurians. He wants revenge on the Supervisor who sent his men to their deaths. Balder doesn't trust him, but Storm agrees to go along.

Solon leads Storm, Ember, and a nameless extra across a marsh where he seems to prove his intentions by saving Storm from a monster. They enter the city from an old sewer pipe, and make their way through the tunnels until they come up through a manhole and find:

Balder gloats to Solon they they discovered his treachery by him discussing his plans over an open comm. He throws Solon, Storm, and Ember in the dungeon.

Meanwhile, the extra, though fatally wounded, made it back to the camp to tell Balder what happened. Enraged, Balder leads an all out assault on the city. Though the humans fight bravely, the advanced technology of the Azurians inflicts heavy losses.

The Supervisor watches the battle on his viewscreens but also finds time to get grabby with the beautiful serving girl, Silene--who it turns out is the fiancee of Solon.

She steals his keys from him and frees our protagonists. They run to open the gate, but some where along the way, they lose Ember in the crowd. There is no time to look for her. In the control room, Storm and Solon take out the guards and raise the gate. Balder and the army pours in. The fighting is fierce, but eventually the Azurians are overcome.  The Supervisor has one surprise left though:

He demands a ship and safe passage for himself and his remaining men. Mordegai grants their request. The Azurians fly off to an old, deserted Chultu Monastery in the mountains once known as the Himalayas.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Shooting Star Folk

The Shooting Star folk (or Asterians) are a vagabond and rowdy bunch, who are generally not welcomed among the Stars and Planets that comprise polite society of the heavens. They are forever crashing into things, (Planets, Stars, each other) and despite the danger, consider it a great thrill to do so, burning bright and screaming to the void.

Sometimes their dives or their landings sap them of too much celestial energy, and they must consolidate themselves into more suitable forms for whatever place they find themselves. There they wait until their fellows scream by and rescue them. [The Warforged for 5e is a reasonable approximation of earth-bond stats.] A few are known to be in the Land of Azurth at present.

Despite their unruly nature, the Shooting Star folk have a monarchy. The Tsar of Shooting Stars is Zorka. He holds little real authority over his far-flung and itinerant people, beyond being revered as the most daredevil and thrill-seeking of them all. His holds court in the void between Mars and Jupiter when he isn't out surveying the heavens on long orbits.

The Hanna-Barbera Multiverse

With the news that DC is doing a crossover with some Hanna-Barbera characters, it got me thinking about applying a DC style multiverse to their diverse stable of characters. This might be useful for a Hanna-Barbera Supers Universe game. Here's what I've got so far:

Earth-Anthropomorphic
Description: Anthropomorphic animals capable of speech exist side beside with humans and have humorous adventures.
Series Examples: Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Magilla Gorilla, Peter Potamus, Quick Draw McGraw

Earth-Familia (or Flintstone)
Description: A world where humorous family adventures take place. Civilization was very advanced in the Stone Age and dopplegangers of famous people in the 20th Century recur in various eras. By 2062, there is at least one city in orbit.
Series Examples: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Roman Holidays

Earth-Quest
Description: A relatively (in comparison) mundane world of pulpy heroics. There are no costumed heroes and no talking animals, though pets may display near human intelligence.
Series Examples: Jonny Quest, Clue Club, Jana of the Jungle, and Valley of the Dinosaurs and (in the future) Sealab 2020. The unadventurous There Are the Days may also take place in this world, if anyone cares.

Earth-Mystery
Description: A world with a inordinate number of meddling teen mystery solvers and their unusual sidekicks. Some animals here have human-level intelligence and limited speech, but this may not be a universal condition and they are still treated as animals. There is at least one costumed superhero on this world, possibly more. By the 2070s, there is extensive undersea settlement. Astro and the Space Mutts may also take place in this world, meaning the Jetsons's dog has a counterpart in this universe.
Series Examples: Scooby-Doo, Funky Phantom, Captain Caveman, Galloping Ghost and Buford, Speed Buggy, Dynomutt, (in the future) Jabberjaw.

Earth-Superhero
Description: A world of costumed and non-costumed heroes across multiple eras that take on super-villains.
Series Examples: Birdman and The Galaxy Trio, Space Ghost, Mightor, Teen Force, Shazzan, and The Herculoids.

Earth-Impossible
Description: A world of superheroes that are more cartoonish in nature. This may also be the world of the child heroes without adult involvement.
Series Example: Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, The Powerpuff Girls, also possibly the Space Kidettes.

Dictionary of Azurth Update

Here's the latest version of the Dictionary of Azurth with entries from recent events in my game (the Motley Isles, the Confection Perfection, and the Chromic Witches) but also new stuff like Roquar the Nome King and Wizardry, the magazine for the magical practitioner.

Chronology of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Unlike the comic book version of the Marvel Universe with its sliding timeline in order to keep characters perpetually young, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to employ real live actors and has no reason not to tie things to real dates since the actors are just going to get old anyway.  The movies don't pin themselves down so much on when the actual films take place (or their references are contradictory), but we do know quite a bit about the events before them:

Tony Stark was born on May 29, 1970.

Hank Pym resigns from SHIELD in 1989.

Howard and Maria Stark are assassinated by the Winter Soldier on December 16 1991.

Anyway, check out these timelines here and here.