Weird Revisited: Different Dark Suns

I thought this classic post from 2014 would be a good compliment to yesterdays....

Dark Sun is an evocative setting as is, but there's nothing wrong with a little variety. Maybe there are two great tastes that taste great together? Try these:

Art by Kevin O'Neill

Dark Sun, Red Sands
Killraven (and the War of the Worlds tv shows, and perhaps The Tripods series of novels by John Christopher) posits a world where the Martians from Wells's novel return and succeed in their conquest. The Masters would no doubt turn their vast, cool, and unsympathetic intellects toward areoforming Earth in the image of their homeworld. Desertification and cooling, accomplished by casting dust into the sky (making the sun appear darker and redder).  Over time, the Masters became decadent and lost the ability to produce much of their technology. They amused themselves with bloodsports and petty intrigues. The mutants and monsters they had bred for various purposes escaped into the wilds. Earth becomes almost Mars, and almost Mars becomes Athas, or something pretty close.

Art by Frank Frazetta

Dark Red Sun
Two ideologies fought a centuries long war, unleashing weapons they destroyed their world's environment, mutated its creatures, and cast both civilizations back to a more primitive state.Perhaps these competing tribes were called the Kohms and Yangs, but certainly the victors in their struggle flew a red flag (as ERB had it, in the original version of the book that became The Moon Maid). In any case, their former differences don't matter as much anymore in a harsh world where human and inhuman is a bigger distinction. Sometimes, though, the desert tribes still give the ancient war cry: "Wolverines!" though none remember what it might mean.

Art by Ken Kelly

Dark Western Sun
This riff is to BraveStarr what McKinney's Carcosa might be to Masters of the Universe. When galactic civilization tore itself apart in civil war, many frontier worlds, left on their on, backslide into primitivism. The strange, psionic races of Darksun left their reservations and remote hiding places and turned human habitation into settlements isolated by wilderness, where the only law comes from the barrel of a gun.

A Darker Sun

Brom

My idea for what to do with Dark Sun is more fully formed that my Ravenloft riff. Mainly, I would play up certain things that are already there:

Post-Apocalyptic Dying Earth. At some point in the future, the sun will sputter and fail, and the world will die. Civilization may not even survive until then. As in the Zothique, stories cities continue to die or be abandoned. However, the decadence and lassitude of the dying Earth genre is not as much in evidence as the grim struggle and sporadic madness of the post-apocalyptic story: the aesthetic and weird tribes of Mad Max, the savagery and cannibalism of the comic The Goddamned, and the horrifying monsters beyond the walls of Attack on Titan or zombie films.

Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri

Body Horror. Weird, disfiguring plagues; parasitic monsters; icky organic technology; body-warping magic/psi powers (Sorcerer Kings should be more Guild Navigator from Lynch's Dune) and drugs.

Weird Stone Age. No/few metal weapons; lots of tattoos and body paint; primitive tribesfolk. Clothing somewhere between Barsoom and 10,000 B.C. A light Masters of the Universe flourish, perhaps. Hok the Mighty as an HBO series.

Psychedelic Metal. Did I say no metal? I meant not much metallurgy, but there should be plenty of barbarian badassery. Also, though, there should mind-warping weirdness like strange monsters, drugs, and powers. It should be like Heavy Metal of the 70s-80s,encompassing the hypertrophic anatomies of Bisley and the trippiness of Druillet.

Simon Bisley

Castle Ravenloft

I've been thinking of maybe doing a series of posts on re-imagings of old TSR settings. First up is this admittedly not fully formed idea about Ravenloft.

I think it might be cool to make Ravenloft a little more Gormenghast: the castle is bigger and more dilapidated (visual reference: the castle in The Fearless Vampire Killers) and becomes more central to shrunken Barovia, which is maybe no more than a valley. The castle and environs would be a bit like Dark Shadow's Collinsport. There would be a lot of weird doings in just the house and area. Strahd would be perhaps a bit toned down in villainy, more like early, non-protagonized Barnabas Collins. Strahd should probably have some bickering, eccentric, and likely inbred human family inhabiting the castle as well.

The outside world would exist, but necessarily be vaguely defined. Barovia would be a hard to get to place, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. The strange doors of Castle Ravenloft would open onto other Domains of Dread, though.

The play of the Gothic horror, I feel like it would work better with a funnel type situation, where characters of humble backgrounds either work at the castle and discover it's horrors or are visitors to Barovia.

Weird Revisited: Random Zonal Aberrations

This 2015 post was a follow-up to my recently ressurrected post about Zonal Anomalies.

Aberrations (not to be confused with the D&D monster type) are a type of hazard encountered in zones. The resemble mobile anomalies in some ways, but they exhibit wider patterns of behavior, resembling (at least in limited observation) living things. They are abiologic, however; their tissues (if they have them at all) appear undifferentiated to close inspection, or they may have simulacra of organs that are clear nonfunctional. They do not appear to eat, grow, or reproduce, though they sometimes mimic behaviors associated with these activities. They can not be destroyed or driven off by "wounding" them (in most cases, it's unclear if they can be wounded) but must be completely destroyed.

Aberrations have a substance (similar to the manifestations of anomalies), a behavior pattern, and effects/abilities. A lot of D&D monsters would make good inspiration for aberrations. So are some paranormal or folkloric entities but keep in mind in their game usage they are more like obstacles or traps than monsters to be fought. Slimes and oozes are good models. You could destroy them, but it's generally more fruitful to just avoid them.

Unlike most anomalies, aberrations can spot/notice things approaching them as well as being noticed themselves--though the sensory modality by which they do this isn't clear. They are not usually as tied to as specific an area as anomalies, but most will have a specific territory, in the way an animal might.

Substance
1  Apparition
2  Construct
3  Crystalline/Mineral
4  Flesh
5  Fluid
6  Gas
7  Growth
8  Light
9  Ooze/Slime/Gelatinous
10 Shadow

Behavior
1  Ambusher. Lies in wait, sometimes in a dormant or indolent state, until approached.

2  Builder. Involved in some sort of construction project like a nest or nonrepresentational sculpture.

3  Chaser. After detecting target, follows targets at a high rate of speed.

4  Collector. Forages for particular objects or objects with particular characteristics.

5  Follower. Loosely joins with the target, following at a respectful distance without overt hostility.
6  Guard. Only active in a certain area. Patrols and menaces those who enter.

7  Harbinger. Appearance precedes some other event.

8  Lurker. Follows targets, but furtively, as if shy.

9  Mimic. Seems to repeat the actions or behaviors of a target.

10 Ritualist. Performs certain fairly complicated but perhaps mundane actions over and over.

11 Swarm. Smaller entities surround targets.

12 Snooper. Curious, possibly annoyingly and intrusively so, but not threatening.

13 Stalker. After detecting target, hunts it over distances.

14 Watcher. Stays in plan view, but at some remove as if only there to observe. No direct interaction.

Effects: Use the table for Zonal Anomalies--or borrow from a monster.

Examples:
chasing shadow: Too thick and deep black to be natural, the chasing shadow is nevertheless able to lurk unseen in normal darkness. It slides out of hiding when a living thing draws near, and if not stopped, attaches itself to them at their feet like a normal shadow--though does not also flow out in the same direction as the natural one. It slowly begins to crawl up the victims body and if not stopped, will cover a person complete in darkness in 20-30 hours. Over the next 30-45 minutes it will contort and collapse their body until only the flat shadow remains. What happens to the victim is unknown. If caught early, the shadow can be removed but only if the victim is surrounded by bright light and a small laser (like a laser pointer, for example) is used carefully "cut" away from the chasing shadow.

grim: Something like the featureless, white quadrupedal shape, surrounded by blotchy redness, like the silhouette of a large dog outlined in red spray paint. Grims simply appear on high ground, never approaching, and retreating if they are approached. They usual appear after someone has been seriously wounded, and Zone hunters fear them as a harbinger of death.

memory flashes: Groups of will-o'-the-wisp-like flashes of light with colorful after-images. They move quickly to swarm around a person, typically for no more than a minute. After the flashes pass, a person so caught will have one or more new memories of things that happened to someone else instead of them. They will also likely notice at some point that one or more of their own memories are missing--always small, discrete things, but perhaps important (like a telephone number of the location of something).

Wednesday Comics: Atomahawk

Atomahawk by Donny Cates (script) and Ian Bederman (art) was first serialized in Heavy Metal, but has been collected by Image into a volume numbered "0" for some reason. Atomahawk is a very metal story, in fact it is more metal than story. This panel is representative:

I kind of goes on like that. I lot of threats with the evocation of Masters of the Universe or Kirby Cosmicism as interpreted in an Iron Maiden concept album. It tells the story (or part of the story) of a warrior of flesh and blood (perhaps a Neanderthal, but the story is set "millions of years ago") resurrected in a robotic body by a futuristic god. Now known as Cyberzerker, he wields the intelligent axe known as Atomahawk, powered by crystals left over from the war of the gods.

Cyberzerker goes through the story slicing away and robots and people who get in his way in an over-the-top way until the ride ends, with teh story unfinished. Hopefully, there will a a 1 to follow the 0.

Atomic Age Operation: UNFATHOMABLE!

At the close of World War II, captured German scientists revealed to both the Americans and the Soviets the existence of an unfathomable Underworld on hinted at in legend and folklore. Perhaps driven mad by experimentation with Underworld technology, the Soviet scientist Yerkhov, with the consent of his superiors, takes an artifact known as the Nul Rod and leads an expedition of crack Soviet troops into the depths. The exact fate of the expedition is unknown, but one of Yerkhov’s assistants emerged from a cave in the Nevada desert. His mind broken by his experiences, he gave revealed little reliable intelligence, but did have in his possession a rough map of the expedition’s journey.

Denying the Soviet’s the Nul Rod and establishing an American presence in the Underworld is now our strategic priority. We believe a smaller mission, attracting less attention from the hostile locals, might be able to succeed where Yerkhov failed.

So, I think it would be pretty easy to drop Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable into a 50s sci-fi/monster movie sort of setting. It already has a lot of the right elements. I could see a TV show (by Irving Allen, naturally), something like a cross between Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Combat!.

Art by Jason Sholtis

Girlgantua [ICONS]

Art by Chris Malgrain

GIRLGANTUA

Abilities:
Prowess: 5
Coordination: 6
Strength: 6
Intellect: 3
Awareness: 4
Willpower: 4

Determination: 4
Stamina: 10

Specialties: Athletics

Qualities:
Spoiled and Rich
"It's not fair!"
Inner Monster Unleashed

Powers:
Growth: 8
Tail (Fast Attack 5)

A plane crash left college student Nicole Summers, her mother, and her mother's personal trainer/boyfriend on Isla de los Monstruos where an ancient Muvian device causes teratogenesis of earthly lifeforms. Blasted with its energies, Nicole is transformed into the rampaging lizard-woman, Girlgantua!