Rapping With Thrantrix

Anybody who has watched the Operation Unfathomable Kickstarter video is familiar with that chaos godling and bon vivant (well, maybe just the former) Thrantrix the Ineffable. Now, as you know, Chaos Godlings say the darnedest things, and that Thrantrix is quotable beyond all others. Hydra has a little contest going: Give us your best Thrantrix quotations and we'll collect them into one tome. Also, the very best will go into the adventure as "sample dialogue" the godling might drop on the PCs, so that's the sort of quotation we're looking for: cutting adventurer put-downs, Underworld gossip, incomprehensible cosmic musings, weird worship requirements, gripes about other Godlings, etc.

The top submission will receive the actual model of Thrantrix that appeared in our Kickstarter video, once the campaign ends and a winner has been chosen!

Bad Hombres on the Planet of the Apes

"THE WAR WHEEL" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Billy Longino as Olsen Potter Graves
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Mutant driver
Various tribesfolk

Synopsis: The Kreeg War Wheel attacks the conclave on the Rio Grande, but the astronauts and their ape friend strike back.

Commentary:
As heavily armored as a tank, the weapons of the astronauts are pretty much useless. Graves and Aurelius hatch a plan to tip the machine over with the grenades they acquired a few sessions back. From the back of a horse-sized mutant dog this doesn't go exactly smoothly, but is nonetheless sucessful enough in damaging the War Wheel to make it retreat.

Graves continues his alcohol-fueled heroism and tries to blow torch his way into one of the gun turrets. After evicting one of the mutants, he manages to damage the controls and crash the thing.

A mutant like the one Graves killed

Eezaya finally seemes impressed with the Men from the Sky and willing to listen to their suggestions.

Aurelius acquires a pistol (the astronauts hadn't been letting him have one before) and a helmet like this:

Wednesday Comics

No Storm update this week, instead here are a couple of recent comics related purchases I made:

Head Lopper is the story of a white-haired and bearded warrior who carries around the still living head of witch he decapitated, while he goes on a quest to kill a sorcerer for a queen. Headlopping is what he does best and there is a lot more decapitation along the way. This is fun fantasy comic with an interesting setting. I only wish their was more of it.

The Star Reach Companion is a history of an obscure, but in some ways, important part of comics history. The titular Star*Reach (1974-1976) was one of few anthology series that bridged the gap between underground comics and the mainstream. Featuring edgier work by known creators, it prefigured Heavy Metal and independent comics in general. This retrospective not only gives comprehensive coverage of Star Reach, but it also covers similar anthology series of the 70s.

What's Got this Alien So Surprised?

Could it be he's heard that Strange Stars OSR is now in layout? It's been a long time coming, (longer than I planned!) but I am happy to say I placed the manuscript and art in the hands of the very able Lester B. Portly this past weekend.

We're in the home stretch. Stay tune!

A Science Fantasy World

Art by Jason Sholtis

Here's a roundup of the posts I've done for a (as yet) nameless science fantasy world.

Two PC races statted for 5e:
Hwaopt: Smelly reptilian scholars
Hohmmkudhuk: Anteater folk.

Four Nonhuman races, not statted: The Skarzg, Ylthlaxu, Trell, and Ieldra

And some encounters/locales in that world:
"Aboard the Aureate Majestrix on the Occasion of the Panarch's Anniversary"
"In the Vicinity of the Unthran Wood"
"More Descriptions for Hypothetical Hexes"
"Three Descriptions in Need of Hexes"

Apes of the Southwest

Here's the map with some events labelled from my ongoing Planet of the Apes game. Of course, this old map contains cities and roads, none of which continue to exist in the 36th century.

Review the highlights of the campaign here.

Würm: First Look

The Kickstarter for the English translation of the French prehistoric rpg Würm dropped yesterday. I haven't had time for more than brief flip-through but it seems pretty cool. Here are not observations:

• The art is at times a bit on the cartoony side (it reminds me a bit of some Franco-Belgian comic art), but is "realistic" in what it depicts, not pulpy. No Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. lookalikes. Neanderthals get a lot of depiction and as protagonists, not brutish adversaries.
• The mechanics related to hunting, tracking, and killing are as robust as combat is in most rpgs. There is a "Butchering" roll and a "Skinning" roll, apparently--and cool features like this: "If eaten raw in the moments following the death of the animal, the liver of a killed mammal grants the one eating it the Strength connected to this kind of animal until next dawn. Note that this power only applies to mammals."
• "Magical" abilities of various sorts are discussed including Shamanism and "Sorcery" (the making of potions and ointments). There are also rules for handling relationships with spirits and curses.
• The monster section contains the usual prehistoric beasts (no dinosaurs), but also, somewhat surprisingly, some fantasy staples like dragons, a couple of types of giants, and spirits of the elements.

All and all, it looks interesting, and I'm glad I backed the Kickstarter.