Valley of the Bugbears

What the bugbears look like if they weren't invisible

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night. The party had passed through the so-called Black Pit into yet another strange, pocket world. This one was the mountain-ringed Valley of Vo., as they would soon discover.

They made their way to the crashed ship, along the way noting that they could see any birds in the odd fruit trees, despite hearing them. Near the great broken vessel, they were accosted by two voices--though the speakers were unseen, invisible. These were the gatherers Phanuvo and Gadrevo of the Vozerai. They filled the party in on the basics of their valley: invisible "bugbears" and the feud between their people and the Voyanki.

The party gets an audience with Learned One Hanivo. He isn't able to tell them much more than they've already heard: The dama-fruit makes all who eat it invisible. They know the ship carrying them crashed here long ago, but they do not know how long. They also don't know what world they originally came from. The one bit of useful information is that the Pyramidal Mountain on the otherside of the valley has a stairway inside that can take them out.

The group decides to talk with the Vozerai (who are more warlike and so, they reason, may know of some tips for fighting off the bugbears). Approaching the tail section, they encounter a young warrior who gets them a short audience with Shaman Vo Angra. The Vozerai are indeed more bellicose than the Voyanki, but equally ill-informed, and grudge-holding against their foes.

The party decides they'll have to just make a break for it. They make it most of the way across the valley, but then they encounter two bugbears. A vicious battle ensues, but both bears are killed. Dagmar suggests they skin them for fur for invisibility cloaks. A good idea, but the execution leaves them vulnerable to bugbear assault. A total of 3 approach at various points. One they drive off with some damage, and the other two they lure away with offal from the two carcasses. After harvesting one skin, they decide not to press their luck and make for the entrance to the mountain.

The Hungry Gods

A universe with "objective" morality as suggested by alignment in D&D has always been hard to operationalize without silliness.This has led to subsequent additions downplaying it and many groups ignoring it all together.

R. Scott Bakker's novels set in the Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor series suggest a different take on deities, clerics, and alignment that might be useful in gritty, maybe even slightly horrific games. I guess it could be used anywhere really, but some of the implications lend themselves to those sort of settings. Anyway, here's an idea riffing off Bakker's ideas:

So first off, the metaphysical geography: Beyond the physical universe is the Outer Dark. Visitors might perceive planes or realms here due to local control of some being, but really all the heavens and hells are just different regions or aspects of the Outer Dark. This is where human souls go when people die, into the waiting grasp of demons and gods. The difference between the two is only one of power, not substance. All the beings of the Outer Dark feed off the emotions of human souls where it be in life or death. The gentlest of gods has the same diet as the cruelest of demons. Humans are their bread or cattle.

The gods' strategies from cultivating food varies according to their nature. Some gods are Compensatory Deities who reward the faithful with various afterlife paradises, while others are Punitive and are worshiped to placate them against punishing humans. A third group might be termed "Bellicose" because they like humans to strive in opposition to them. These might even damn humans for prayer. These inclinations could be matched to alignments--or perhaps alignment is a reflection of what sort of actions a given god wants humans to take?

In any case, no god is truly "good" in humanocentric terms, because what they ultimately care about is suffering in life leading to humans to develop strong emotions toward them, nourishing them mildly in life, and delivering an eternal repast in the afterlife. Pro-civilization gods encourage humans to prosper, but if humans were too prosperous they wouldn't come to the god with their prayers and bring their devotion.

Alignment then is just the particular set of rules by which the gods use to judge a human soul. It's perhaps unfair and nonsensical if examined too closely, but that's because its only a means to mark and trap human souls for the metaphysical reaping.

Monsters, Blood & Treasure

John M. Stater has released the monster manual for the second edition of his retroclonish Blood & Treasure (discussed, here). While the stat blocks are pretty universal, one might reasonably think if they already have the monster book for their clone of choice, why do they need another? Okay, the cover is awesome, but why else?

It is true that many of the monsters are the usual assortment of humanoids, dragons, demons, and devils, but there are a few SRD notables I haven't seen in any old school product before. There are some new creatures and interesting homages to non-SRD beasties, too, like the "we-don't-need-no-stinking-Modrons" Polyhedroids. All of these stat blocks and descriptions are old school short (I don't think there is a page with less than 2 monsters), it is much more lavishly illustrated than most basic, old school monster books in an array of styles from well-chosen public domain illustration to cartoony. The only downside is that audiences used to modern monster books pinups, these will seem small. All in all, these traits make it probably the most AD&D Monster Manual of monster books I have seen.

There are the usual encounter charts by terrain, plane, and level. There are quick rules for many monsters as PC races. The typical extras, in other words. There are also a handful of one page "mini-adventures," all short and flavorful. John is good at this sort of thing as his hexcrawls attest. I'm not the only one that thinks so.

If any of that sounds good to you, you should check it out. Certainly if you already have Blood & Treasure 2e, you'll want it.

Wandering the Planet of the Apes

"THE DESERT" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Justin Davis as Conrad "Rip" Ripper
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Morgan Farley as Ilpasa Elder
Gorilla Troopers
Ilpasa Tribesfolk

Synopsis: The astronauts and their chimpanzee friend set off across the desert in search of human tribes and discover hints of another enemy.

Commentary:
Leaving the Pax base at Carlsbad, the group was not completely certain of what particularly course south they should take. Eezaya had said his people lived along "the ancient border," but that was pretty nonspecific. They decided to return to their ship to survey from the air, even though they knew their fuel was low.

A roll on a slightly modified version of the X4: Master of the Desert Nomads random encounter table suggested an encounter with an enemy patrol: They found four gorilla troopers investigating the ship. As formulated a plan to deal with them, a strange mechanical sound and trail of black over the next hill got the gorilla's attention. They quickly rode off in pursuit.

Quickly, pre-packing the ship and taking off, the group wanted to see what the fuss was about. Flying low (burning more fuel) they saw a weird, smoke-belching contraption leveling an ape homestead little more than a mile from where they had landed. The gorillas rode toward it, but didn't get there until the thing had drove off into a wooded area in the direction of the Pecos River. The group debated whether to investigate that weirdness, but ultimately decided to fly on. The players that had been in the last session were concerned this was likely to be the mutants the Pax-droids had mentioned.

They fly out toward the west, looking for the Rio Grande. They find it and see what appear to be human settlements, based on the more primitive design. Landing at a flat part of the desert, Woodward doesn't get high enough on his piloting roll and winds up damaging one of the thrusters. It's probably repairable, though no one ever rolls to try and find out for certain.

Walking across the desert to the camp provokes another random encounter roll. This time a gorgon, for which a giant iguana is a good substitute.

LaCava reminds them all its herbivorous, and they give it wide berth.

The villagers are understandably wary, but hospitable (the flags on their flight suits help). There is a curious lack of warriors in their prime among them, which later they are told is due to the Mehi and their mutant allies.

The people call themselves the Patryot Nation and revere the ancient American flag and apparently the King James Bible. This particular tribe is the Ilpassa. Eezaya is of the more ape-hating Tehis.

The Ilpassa Elder they speak with is fatigued by their antics, but seems fooled by their passing off a spacesuit-clad Aurelius as their "grandfather."

In the end, the group isn't interested in the plight of the Ilpasa, and their fight with the mutants. They head out South along the river to find the Tehi.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Legend of Yggdrasil

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

Storm: The Legend of Yggdrasil (1981) (part 5)
(Dutch: De Legende van Yggdrasil)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Kelvin Gosnell

In the arena, Storm, Ember, and the dinos are encircled by horsemen with lances, waiting to charge. Storm pays them little heed as he investigates the large metallic dome at the center. It's made of the same material as the teleportation pads--and it has the tyrannosaur symbol on it!

Storm has Wagnar press his warrior emblem into engraving. A door opens and our heroes slip inside before the horsemen can get to them. A robot greets them on the inside and activates a holographic projector that reveals a startling history.

His creators were a peaceful race who found themselves beseiged by barbarians 1100 years ago. They used a time machine to bring dinosaurs from the past, then from that stock create a race of saurian warriors. Now they had a defense against the barbarians, but realizing the days of peace were over, they decided to leave the Earth and their creations behind.

Shocked by these revelations, the dino folk want to know who Yggdrasil is, if  humans were their creators. The robot presses a few buttons and reveals a tyrannosaur in a stasis field. This is their Yggdrasil: the genetic progenitor of their race.

Wag-Nar is shocked. Their god is a monster! He does have time to fully digest these revelations as the dome has more visitors. The traitorous priest used his medallion to open the dome and brought the humans with him. I fight breaks out and in the melee:

"Yggdrasil" is released. The tyrannosaur goes on a rampage. The priest is devoured by his own "god," who them breaks out of the dome. Ember, Storm, and Wag-Nar face the dinosaur in the arena. Only Wag-Nar is strong enough to deliver the killing blow:

Wag-Nar is fatally wounded, too. He asks Storm and Ember to find a safe place for his people. Storm promises he will. Fortuitously, Storm's ship arrives. He gives it to the robot and the dino folk. He and Ember are going to take the energy bridge to Antarctica--and the time machine.

THE END

Serpent Men in the Garden

"In those days the serpent went upright like a man, nor was he exactly nonhuman in shape, but his beauty was a different from a man's as day is from night. He was lithe and gorgeously scaled and by standards a supremely handsome, supremely male creature."
- C.L. Moore, "Fruit of Knowledge"

In my post on the demi-humans of the pre-Flood world. I forgot the Serpents. As you may recall from the temptation of Eve in the Book of Genesis, Serpents had limbs and come talk Sounds like a Howardian Serpent Man to me.

Getting cursed by God and loosing his limbs suggests (to me at least) variable levels of snake-ness among later serpent descendants--something like the Yuan-ti. Conflation with the Snake Men of Masters of the Universe is done at your own discretion.

Some Counter-factual Covers I Forgot

After Monday's post, I realize I hadn't tagged a series of fake covers I did a few months ago for our Hydra Cooperative products in the style of Mayfair's Role-Aids line:

Here's Mortzengersturm with a Michael Whelan cover. I was never completely satisfied with the font, but I didn't just want to use the one that will be on the actual cover.

This one all goes together nicely, though I'm afraid it doesn't necessarily reflect the contents of Operation Unfathomable well. The artist is Paul Lehr.

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko gets a bit more acid fantasy with a Gene Szfran cover. It's also got the most complicated logo of all of them.

Misty Isle of the Eld gets more mysterious with a Bruce Pennington cover. I used the same font Luka employed on the real cover (Prisma), and I think it works just as well here.