Weird Revisted: Fantasy Pharmakon

In February of 2010, I had fantasy drugs on the mind. I'm happy to say that in the 7 plus years since this post originally appeared, a lot of fantastic intoxicants have appeared on blogs and OSR products.

"Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."

- Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A couple of years ago, I was following a messageboard thread discussing drugs--intoxicants--in the context of fantasy gaming. It was prompted by White Wolf's Exalted and the modern drugs like heroin and cocaine, apearing therein. One of the writer's involved with defended their choice to use those very modern drugs with those very modern names by saying that "made up" names for things were essentially lame/uncool, and that if a substance was familiar to player's under a certain name, that name ought to be used.

I disagreed in two ways. One, I think using too many words with modern connotations and origins can break the "mood" of fantasy. Such things are "amundisms," as Lin Carter would have it in his seminal exploration on world-building, Imaginary Worlds (1973). Secondly, and most importantly, why should a world like Exalted's Creation, where fantastic creatures like the Beasts of Resplendent Liquids exist--which eat raw materials and excrete drugs--be saddled with the same old, boring drugs found in the real world? Surely, that's a failure of imagination.

Thankfully, many writers of fantastic fiction have not been so limited. Here are several examples of fantastic intoxicants which should serve to inspire interesting new substances for role-playing game characters to use (or misuse):

Black Lotus
In most of Howard's Conan stories, black lotus is a poison (though in "Hour of the Dragon" it's noted that its pollen causes "death-like sleep and monstrous dreams"), but the ancestors of the thoroughly stoned citizens of Xuthal have cultivated it until "instead of death, its juice induces dreams, gorgeous and fantastic." The effects appear to be similar to more mundane narcotics in terms of the heavy sleep and euphoria it induces with the added effect of generating vivid, pleasurable dreams. Find it in: "Xuthal of the Dusk" in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.

Dreamshit
A mysterious, and powerful, new psychedelic drug on the streets of New Crobuzon in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Dreamshit takes the form of brown, sticky pellets about the size of an olive that smell like burnt sugar. Eventually, it's discovered that dreamshit is the "milk" of the deadly, mind-devouring, slake-moths. Find it in: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.

Fledge
In Tim Lebbon's Noreela, fledge is a commonly used (and abused) substance. Mined from deep underground the yellowish substance is put to many beneficial uses by the race of fledge miners for whom it provides sustenance, healing, and the ability to project their minds outside of their bodies. The fledge miners experience no ill-effects from their use, but do have withdrawal if they go without it. Taken to the surface, though, fledge degrades in quality--its mental-projection effects greatly diminish--and becomes highly addictive. Not that fledge mining is totally without dangers. There are rare, but powerful demons (the Nax) sometimes found near fledge veins. Lebbon also gives us another drug--rhellim--which enhances sexual stimulation, and comes from the livers of furbats. Find them in: Dusk, and Dawn by Tim Lebbon.

The Plutonian Drug
The Plutonian Drug appears in the Clark Ashton Smith story of the same name. Also called "plutonium"--though certainly not to be confused with the radioactive element of the same name--it's found on Pluto by the Cornell Brothers' 1990 expedition (I remember watching the intrepid explorers' return on live TV in 1994, don't you?). Its native form is crystalline, but it turns to a powder when exposed to earthly atmosphere. Ingestion of the drug causes the user to be able to perceive their own timeline for a relatively recent period as if it were a spatial dimension, allowing them to see a short distance into the future. Several other extraterrestrial drugs are mentioned in the same story. Find them in: "The Plutonian Drug."

Shanga
Appearing in a couple of stories by Leigh Brackett, shanga certainly brings out the beast in its users.  It isn't actually a drug, but a radiation produced by projector devices, the construction of which is a lost art. Users experience temporary atavism, allowing one to (as the quote goes) make oneself into a beast to get rid of the pain of being a man. The ancient projectors used a prism of an alien crystal rather than quartz, like the projectors found in the seeder parts of Martian trade-cities at the time of the stories. The crystals, the so-called Jewels of Shanga, produce a more potent effect leading to physical de-evolution, with longer exposure causing transformation to ever more remote evolutionary ancestral forms. Find it in: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" (The Secret of Sinharat), and "The Beast-Jewel of Mars."

There you go. Five substances for hours of simulated enjoyment. Turn on, tune in, play on.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Labyrinth of Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues with his adventures in the world of Pandarve. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Labyrinth of Death (1983) 
(Dutch: Het Doolhof van de Dood) (part 3)
Art by Don Lawrence; script by Martin Lodewijk

Marduk's devices begin siphoning off the energy spacetime energy for which Storm is a conduit and storing it in batteries. Then, the energy begins flowing back into Storm, powering him up. He begins using that power to destroy the Theocrat's lab.

Storm's energy is rapidly dissipated, but luckily the rebels arrive just in time. Storm and his friends are reunited. Their are too many guards, though, so they have to flee with the rebels.

Marduk isn't worried. He's confident there is no escaping the corridor they ran into.

Soon, the rebels come up on the "Golden Gates of the Labyrinth of Death." No one has ever entered it and lived:

To Marduk's horror, that doesn't stop our heroes from entering. He orders his hapless guards in after them.

Storm and friends and "Brush-head" (Storm's name for the rebel leader) make their way through the labyrinth. Their way is lit by Storm, still glowing with residual energy. They see the Theocrat's guards behind them, and run off down a random corridor. After passing through narrow tunnels, the way widens again and they encounter a horror:

TO BE CONTINUED

Mortzengersturm in Print--While Supplies Last

The print copies of Mortzengersturm, The Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak have arrived, and a limited number of copies have been set aside for online orders.

Go here for details. The link will be in the sidebar as long as their are copies up for grabs.

Fertile Gaming Ground Seeded with 80s Toys

The eighties is a time famous (or infamous) for toy properties with synergistic multi-media marketing. It seems like every one of them came complete with cartoon series and comic book in addition to the usual merchandise. None of these got role-playing game tie-ins. That’s a pity, because several of them had some potential...well, at least some potential elements suitable for stealing.

Everyone  thinks of the big guys like Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe (which my friends and I did make an rpg for back in the day, based on TSR’s action table games), and Transformers. Those are all good, but let's dig a little deeper...

Inhumanoids tells the story of an armored-suit-wearing group of scientists fighting a trio of newly re-awakened part kaiju, part Lovecraftian, subterranean monsters--the Inhumanoids. The scientists are aided by the surviving members of ancient, prehuman races, who had imprisoned the monsters in the first place. Armored heroes battling subterranean monsters? The rpg applications ought to be obvious.

The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior played with the timeless brother against brother theme, as a personalization of the very rpg-like battle of Order against Chaos. The heroic brother, siding with Order, and his retinue get turned into living crystal. The other brother sides with chaos, and he and his cronies get turned into rock/magma. Both of them got a wizardly advisor, too. Crystar probably doesn’t warrant its on game, but crystal-men and magma men would be pretty cool editions to an already existing one.

In a similar “novel character conception” vein, is Sectaurs. It’s another fantasy, though this is one is perhaps a post-apocalyptic science fantasy taking place on a distant planet. The current natives have insectoid characteristics--the good guys are humans with antenna and compound eyes, while the nasties are more insectoid humanoids. Both sides use giant insects are mounts, and use carapace-derived armor and weapons. There are also the “Keepers of the Way,” a secret society trying to resurrect the lost knowledge of the ancients and pull the world out of medievalism. Sectaurs might make a good campaign, but insectoid humans could easily just be a reskinning of elves.

There are so many other possibilities. Particularly, if wander a bit and outside of the cartoon-promoted big guys.  Remco’s Pirates of the Galaxseas had little going for it beyond the name, but that name is really cool. Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones was like She-Ra but with a more classic barbarian aesthetic, which is something, I guess:

For the intersection of utter imaginative craziness and utterly poor toy design, we need look no farther than The Other World, where all the action figures were bendies, but the creatures were all of the “this has to be a D&D monster already” variety. Exhibit A being our friend Froggacuda, here:

Mortzengersturm in Print

The printer's beat the deadlines, and so I have the a few copies of Mortzengersturm, the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak (available now in pdf) in my hands. The reminder of the print run should be here before North Texas RPG Con.

Why not the usual print on demand? I very much wanted a comic book format for the book (to go with the comic book-y overall design and the print-on-demand services we have been using don't have the best options for that format.

Now that I see the print copies, I'm glad I did as they look great. (These blurry pictures may not do it full justice).

Anyway, the print copies were mostly intended for convention sales; I'm not (and Hydra's not) ready at to jump into order tracking and fulfillment with both feet, but I've ordered more than I'm likely sale at conventions in the near future, so I want to make the rest of the print run available for order. My thinking new is of the 100, 50 will be set aside for cons and what not, and 50 will be up for grab, so supplies will be limited. Obviously, if there is huge demand there will be another print run, but it would have to be big because it's no my intention to turn my house into a shipping center.

Stay tuned. I'll announce it here, of course, when I'm going to start taking orders.

Strange Stars Video Review

For those few of you who read this blog and still haven't bought Strange Stars (and we know who you are), check out this video review by Questing Beast:

Wednesday (MIni-)Comics: He-Man and the Power Sword

Let's take a break from Storm this week to look back at the mini-comic origins of the Masters of the Universe. I don't mean the 80s cartoon with a Captain Marvel in purple tights and a Prince Valiant haircut, a cowardly lion tiger, and a moral for kiddies every episode. I mean the first, more pulpish, post-apocalyptic, sword & sorcery version--before even the 1982 DC comics limited-series. I mean the version appearing in the the four original mini-comics (though technically, these first four were picture books, not comics).

They were written by Donald Glut, who knew how to adapt Sword & Sorcery material for younger audiences with his comics work, including Dagar the Invincible and Tragg and the Sky Gods for Gold Key. Glut talks about the origins of some of the concepts in an online interview. The evocative art for the four stories was by Alfredo Alcala, a comic book artist who's worked for DC and Marvel, on books like Conan, and Kull the Conqueror. What the two gave us was darker, moodier, and more streaked with pulpy highlights, than the decidedly brighter, more superhero-esque cartoon to follow. (I should point out all of the mini-comics are now available in a somewhat larger tome.)

So without further ado, here's my commentary on the first mini-comic, 1981's He-Man and The Power Sword:

We open with a bona fide Hero's Journey "Call to Adventure." He-Man, greatest warrior of his primitve jungle tribe, leaves his people to go defend the legendary Castle Grayskull ("a place of wonders") from the forces of evil. Instead of having a secret identity, He-Man is part of a proud (sometimes) barbaric lineage of Sword & Sorcery characters. He's got a nobler goal than Conan or Brak, but like those forebears he's fascinated by a wondrous elsewhere.

He-Man becomes the first of his people to "trudge the craggy cliffs and quake-torn valleys" outside of the jungle. It's not long before his courage and "jungle-bred stength" is needed. He sights a jade-skinned woman in a cobra headress fighting a purple monster that looks like it might be from a lost in space episode. He-Man rushes into the fray and despite the woman's mystical blasts ("She is a sorceress!" he thought), he pretty much does the monster slaying himself.

Had this not been a kid's book, the shapely Sorceress might have rewarded the warrior other ways, but since it is, He-Man instead gets "Supernatural Aid" (again with the Hero's Journey!). The Sorceress gives him the treasures she's guarded all these years, things made "centuries before the Great War by Eternia's scientists."

Here's one of those cool details. We've got a Great (so great its capitalized) War, and scientists making medieval appearing weapons. One might wonder what kind of scientists those were, but this yarn provides hints but no answers.

He-Man takes the loot which includes a "strange vehicle" (understatement) that's "combination battering ram, catapult, and space-warp device." Those pre-Great War scientists did some out-of-the-box thinking.

Meanwhile, Skeletor, and his minion Beastman, and ogling the "warrior-goddess" Tee-La (it was hyphenated in those early days) who's watering her "unicorn charger." The two villains attack, as Skeletor plans to make Tee-La his bride. We're told she "fights like a demon, her body possessing the spirits of many ancestral champions," but Skeletor's energy blade wins the day.

They carry her with them to Castle Grayskull--"a fortress so ancient no one knew its origin." Over the objections of the Spirit of the castle, Skeletor forces open the Jaw-Bridge. Skeletor's after the other half of the Power Sword so that "the magic fires, created by ancient scientists and sorcerers will blaze again." Cool.

It turns out Skeletor is from another dimension. The Great War ripped a whole in the walls between dimensions and threw him into Eternia. He plans to open another rift and bring through an army of conquest. This origin, of course, is ignored in later mini-comics and comics.

Elsewhere, He-Man is visited by Man-At-Arms. What happens next is weird: "'And what brings the famous Man At Arms to my humble house?' He-Man asked sarcastically." Why all the sarcasm, He-Man? Anyway, Man At Arms ("whose people are the masters of all weapons") fills He-Man in on Skeletor's shenanigans. The two set out to stop him, with impulsive He-Man space-warping ahead.

Somehow, in the bowels of Grayskull (sold separately), Skeletor knows He-Man is coming and sends Beastman up to shoot the turrett laser at at him. Beastman proves surprising effective at this, and has He-Man down when the Man-At-Arms cavalry arrives to turn the tide. The He-Man makes the Jaw-Bridge open wide and the heroes head inside to find Tee-La.

Skeletor's had enough time to get the the Power Sword reunited. As the blade crackles with "green fire" he boasts: "I am invincible. There is nothing I cannot do. Nothing!" The best use this power for is apparently making weapons come to life and fight He-Man.

At that moment, the Sorceress reappears glowing with the same green energy as the power sword (Ah hah!). She chastises Skeletor for abusing power and splits the sword again. He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and the just freed Tee-La throw a beating on the two villains, but let 'em cry "mercy!" and run off (it's a kid's book, remember?). The Sorceress again hides the Power Sword and changes the lock on the castle.

"Do you think that's the last of those two or the Power Sword?" Man-At-Arms asks.

Do I really have to tell you He-Man's answer?

There you go, Great Wars, green Sorcereress, extradimensional portals, barbarian heroes, super-science, and sorcery. That's how it started.