Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Hounds of Marduk

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 Hounds of Marduk (1985) 
(Dutch: De Honden van Marduk) (part 4)
Art by Don Lawrence; script by Martin Lodewijk

An aircraft carrying the newly evolved hound and a group of the Theocrat's soldiers lands in a field outside of town. They carry with them a device to locate the Anomaly aka Storm.

Meanwhile, Storm and friends are meeting with the rebel leader. He wants to know why Storm as the Anomaly is so important to Marduk. Storm reluctantly explains Marduk's theory as to how his travel through time and space has filled his body with some sort of energy. Storm demonstrates:

But that's enough to make him show up on the Hound's device. The Theocrat's men track Storm to an abandon temple.

The rebel leader tries to sell Storm on letting the rebellion harness his power. Storm isn't buying it. The rebels detect the incoming Theocrat troops. The temple is full of ancient traps. They kill some of the troops, but the Hound figures out how to avoid them and a contingent makes it through. I firefight breaks out, and the rebel leader attempts to get Storm and friends away.

The Hound, again thinking quickly, uses a prismatic Tear of Pandarve to reflect the energy beam from the booby trap against the rebel forces.

He leads the Theocrat's men forward, but they are stymied by another trap.

Meanwhile, Storm and friends have had about enough of being pushed around by the rebels:

Unaware what's going on in the other room. The rebel leader surrenders to the Hound and his troops who have just made in through. He promises to give them the anomaly in return for his life.

TO BE CONTINUED

Switcheroo-Witcheroo

Mortals always run a risk when they traffic with magical forces. Just ask June Moone. A strange encounter with a being called the Dzamor at a costumed party left her with the power to transform into the raven-haired witch known as the Enchantress. During the late 60s and possibly longer, she used the powers of the Enchantress to combat evil. Few of her adventures are known. She kept a low profile—until she tried to trick Supergirl into altering the orbit of the moon.

At least that’s what the comics say, but we have reason to doubt the complete veracity of that account. Santa Augusta is really just a barely pseudonymous stand-in for publicity shy (at least this sort of publicity) Saint Augustine, though the New Athens Experimental School was a real place. Supergirl was commonly seen in the area, but this wasn’t Linda Danvers. Instead, it was her niece Lola Kent, daughter of Lois and Clark, who worked as a student counselor at the school. June Moone was a parapsychology teacher (I told you it was an experimental school); she had hardly aged in the decade since gaining the Enchantress identity, though she had long since split from her trouble-prone boyfriend Alan Dell.

Enchantress was still on the side of heroes, but her methods had become, it’s fair to say, unsound. She sought to capitalize on a cosmic alignment of astral forces centered at New Athens and make herself (and her mystical patron, perhaps) nearly omnipotent, so she could defeat evil once and for all. The only downside was the complete overturning of all scientific law. How Supergirl defeated her is not entirely clear, but we may be certain it was not accomplished by briefly changing the moon’s orbit as depicted.

Shortly thereafter, the two clashed again at Miami Beach. This time, the Enchantress tricked Supergirl into helping her, but ultimately the Maid of Might saw through the ruse and again defeated the sorceress. Moone vowed revenge, but never seems to have gotten it.

When next we see her, she has joined up with a band of forgotten villains who call themselves exactly that. Interestingly, this Enchantress is blonde and blue-eyed, like June Moone herself, but not her Enchantress persona. This may be the author's signal that this was the Asgardian sorceress also known as the Enchantress instead.

What little nobility there was in the Enchantress must have died in the Crisis. When she next surfaces as a coerced member of the Suicide Squad, the power hungry and sociopathic Enchantress persona has completely overtaken June Moone.

Crashing the Sea King's Party in a Yellow Submarine

Imagine this underwater

Our 5e Land of Azurth campagin continued last night with the party hearing a desperate plea for aid from Old Freedy, the kaleidoscopic tophat-wearing frogling ambassador from the Land of Under-Sea. It seems the utopia of Under-Sea has been overrun by the evil toad people from beyond the Blue Wall. Kully's father, Cory, and the cat-man Calico Jack were in Under-Sea at the time and are now aiding the froglings in finding champions.

The party quite reasonably wonders what they can do against a toad people army. Old Freedy explains that their are not actually that many toads, but that are too tough for the froglings to handle. The party was suggested by Cory Keenstep and Calico Jack (who had heard of them through his sister, Calico Bonny). Freedy discloses they have hired the party's old friend, the steam-powered  Commodore Cog to command the submarine craft they brought from Under-Sea.

This is all pretty incredible, but the most adventurous members of the party are eager to do it, and they overrule the more strictly avarous members. The first step (Freedy now reveals) is rescuing Cory Keenstep from the Sea King's folly. It seems he beat the libertine old merman in cards too many times, and the King won't let him go until he has gotten his money back.

The party traveled down a tube of airy water to the Sea King's palace. Only the female members were allowed inside by the sahuagin guard. They learn that the Sea King is sulking in his sanctum to avoid his ex-wife Cecaelia, who had taken over the second floor lounge. She was monopolizing Cory's attentions there. On a tip from some sea elf party-girls, Shade drugged an octopus body guard so that the males in the party could sneak in the back door. Unfortunately, the sahuagin and his four sharks caught them in the act and a bloody underwater melee ensued. The party was victorious, but at least 3 were seriously wounded.

Azurth Digest--Still copies available

The first issue of the Azurth Adventures Digest  print edition is still on sale, but only about 10 copies remain! Twenty-eight full color pages at 5.5 in. x 7.75 in. with art by Jeff Call and Jason Sholtis. There are random tables for the generation of quirky Motley pirates, a survey of interesting and enigmatic islands, and a mini-adventure on the Candy Isle. Plus, there are NPCs and a couple of monsters, all straight from my Land of Azurth 5e campaign.

 Go here for the print(+pdf) edition, while supplies last. If you only want the pdf, well, that's always available here.

Kickstarters Fulfilled

I've had several Kickstarters I backed drop their products in the last few weeks, and though some of them had longer than expected waits, I've been pretty pleased. Here's a brief rundown:

Talislanta: The Savage Land is a "prequel" to Talislanta as we traditionally have known it, written (at least in part) by Talislanta's creator Steven Michael Sechi. It's more barbaric setting loses so of the Vancian nature of the original and the various cultures are often familiar but different which will take so getting used to, but it has the creativity I expect from a Talislanta book and probably the highest production values yet.

Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne adapts Pendragon's rules to Charlemagne's court as depicted in the Song of Roland and related Romances. I haven't dug much into this one yet, but Pendragon has a good ruleset, and this is a setting that has always interested me.

Aquelarre is the English translation of a well-regarded Spanish rpg. It bills itself as "A Medieval Demonic Roleplaying Game" which says it all really. Just browsing it, I'm really digging the wealthy of detail on the setting, broken down in easy to digest, pretty playable pieces. There are a host of classes like Muccadim (Jewish militia in ghettos) and Goliardo (licentious, worldly young monks) (the whole chargen system reminds me a bit of WFRP at first blush) and a number of monsters from Basque and Spanish folklore.

DC at Marvel: Green Lantern--Most Cosmic Hero of Them All!

This is a follow-up to this post.

GREEN LANTERN

STATISTICS
F                 RM   (30)
A                 RM  (30)
S                 RM  (30)
E                 RM   (30)
R                 GD (10)
I                   EX   (20)
P                  IN   (40)
Health: 120
Karma: 70
Resources: GD (10)
Popularity: 20

BACKGROUND
Real Name: Harold "Hal" Hogan
Occupation: Test Pilot
Identity: Secret
Legal Status: Citizen of the United States with no criminal record.
Place of Birth: Riverside, Iowa
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Base of Operations: Central City, California
Group Affiliation: the Green Lanterns; the Avengers

KNOWN POWERS
Power Bands: Green Lantern's powers are derived from the power bands he wears on his wrists. He can utilize one effect per round, but can maintain up to 3 effects with a successful Psyche FEAT roll.
Energy Blasts: Monstrous rank.
Force Field: a solidified energy shield of Monstrous rank in a single area.
Flight: Incredible air speed within atmosphere, Class 3000 in space
Life Support: A life-support field, providing breathable air and protection from the elements, as well as a Monstrous force field. This field can be sustained even if he is unconscious.
Energy Solidification: Monstrous ability to create and shape solidified energy. Power stunts include:

• Containers of Monstrous material strength
• Carrying Monstrous Loads
• Acting as a limb of Monstrous Strength

Phasing: Excellent rank.
Mystic Lantern: The countainer for the Green Flame energy which powers his bands is a green lantern made of Unearthly strength material. The lantern may be invisible at Amazing rank, if Green Lantern wills it.
Limitation: The power bands must be recharged in close proximity to the lantern every 24 hrs. or they lose their powers.
Weakness: Without his power bands, Green Lantern's Strength and Endurance drop to Good and Excellent, respectively.

TALENTS
Hal Hogan has Remarkable knowledge of piloting, aeronautics, and navigation.

History: See the previous post for his origin.

After managing to survive an all-out assault by the Baron Sinestro, Blastaar, and a force of Qwardian Thunderers from the Negative Zone, the Guardians of the Universe summoned Hal Hogan to bestow upon him greater power. His ring was transformed into twin power bands, through which flowed even greater power.

Yeah, They Call Me Speedy!

Charles Bernard "Barney" Barton took the opportunity his brother Clint refused and left the circus sideshow to become the sidekick of the second Green Arrow, Roy Harper. While they continued to be a nominal team for a longer period, the two only actually worked together for a few years. Like Bucky Barnes and the Boy Commandos before him, Barney soon got pulled into things beyond superheroics, things his perhaps more naive mentor wouldn't do.

By the early 70s, he had a heroin habit, but he was still effective at his job, so Sarge Steel and the CIA kept calling. Perhaps it was in Madripoor where he met the assassin for hire, codenamed Chesire, and began a relationship as short-lived as it was ill-advised. He later would discover he had a daughter from the affair, but the immediate result was that Steel decided he was compromised and severed all ties.

Back in the states, his former costumed allies would help him get clean. He became a drug counselor and hung up his costume for good, leaving only one battling bowman in the family.