Wednesday Comics: Cosmic Tales!

I'm proud to announce friend of FtSS Michael "Aos" Gibbons has released his long-anticipated space-faring superhero comic Cosmic Tales Quarterly, available in a limited print run.

It's 48 pages of story and 3 pin-ups in glorious black and white with a cover colored by yours truly. Head over to Michael's blog, The Metal Earth, to secure your copy while supplies last!

Champion [ICONS]

art by Chris Malgrain

CHAMPION
Abilities:
Prowess: 6
Coordination: 5
Strength: 9
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 6

Determination: 1
Stamina: 16

Specialties: Journalism

Qualities:
Earth’s Mightiest Man
Powers Granted by Otherworld Magic
Big Boy Scout

Powers:
Damage Resistance 3
Otherworld Shield Belt Buckle (Device):

• Flight 7
• Damage Resistance 6
• Life Support 4 
• Super-Senses 4 (Extended Hearing, Enhanced Taste, Enhanced Smell, Extended Vision)
• Super-Speed 6

Notes: Deprived of his magic shield belt buckle, the powers it confers disappear in 2 pages (Damage Resistance drops to 3). His Strength drops a point a page until it reaches 6.

Background:
Alter Ego: Thomas Trent
Occupation: Reporter/Radio Personality
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Ethan and Sarah Trent (aunt and uncle, deceased)
Group Affiliation: Super-Sentinels
Base of Operations: Empire City
First Appearance: CHAMPION COMICS #1
Height: 6'2"  Weight: 220 lbs.
Eyes: Blue  Hair: Blond

History:
While hiking in the woods near his home with his dog Galahad, young Tom Trent fell into the opening to a cave. Unable to climb back up the way he came, Tom discovered light coming from a narrow passage. He passed through it and came into another cave where strange monsters seemed to menace a gnomic figure, apparently asleep on a stone slab. Believing the little man to be in danger, Tom bravely ran through the circle of creatures, evading their talons and jaws. When he reached the stone slab, the monsters dissolved away.

The little man awakened and explained that the monsters were the embodiments of fears, and through courage, Tom had conquered them. The little man was Zyrd, an ancient wizard (later revealed to be one of many from the extradimensional realm of Otherworld) tasked with identifying and empowering champions against the forces of evil. Zyrd declared Tom worthy of being such a champion. In ages past, Zyrd had bestowed swords upon his champions, but he declared the age of the sword passed, so instead he gave Tom a shield, which he magically shrank down to the size of a belt buckle. This shield would be a source of magical strength and power for the boy.

When Tom placed his hands on the shield and mentally called upon its power, he found himself dressed in a strange uniform. Zyrd bid him go forth and use the powers for good. Tom did so, earning the name the Boy Champion, then later simply the Champion, as he grew up.

Zyrd would continue to act as an advisor to Tom, but the irascible and absent-minded wizard perhaps caused trouble as much as he helped. Later, Galahad also gained powers, including heightened intelligence, through a magical shield on his collar, but eventually retired to mind Zyrd full-time.

Tom moved to Empire City and became an investigative reporter and radio host, seeking to root out public corruption and champion the common man. He often worked with investigative reporters Grace Gale and Billy Dolan—and the Champion often rescued them from danger.

Wings Between Worlds

Because space-faring sailing ships are so 80s, let's have genuine aircraft flying between worlds, perhaps open cockpit, certainly of the bat-winged, Frazetta variety. Space will have to have air, of course. Let's say the system is enclosed in a big Dyson Sphere--a crystal sphere, if you like. With a sphere full of air, the temperature of the worlds at the various orbits will be of less concern, though where the warmth and the light comes from will have to wait.

The technology of the primary society might be what we would call Dieselpunk, except it isn't particularly punk or Diesel, but it's that between the Wars era sort of art deco stuff filtered through science fiction. Automobiles out of Flash Gordon and that sort of thing. And, of course magic.

Might as well port in a little bit of Planescape and have the worlds be more a more pulp planet version of the Gygaxian planes. The full compliment of D&D races would be necessary for a Star Wars Cantina vibe. Flash Gordon will help there, too.  The worlds might move in very eccentric orbits. Travel between them might mostly be by sight rather than map.

Wednesday Comics: Stan Lee

As everyone has likely heard Stan Lee passed away this week. The exact contributions of the pioneering creators of Marvel Comics will likely never be known, but Lee and Kirby: 'Stuf Said! from TwoMorrows will give you those two contentious creators' own words on the topic over the years.

A better thing, I think, is to just enjoy the fruits of Lee's collaborations with artist-creators. To that end, you should probably start with Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol 1, and see where that takes you.

Lee's other embittered collaborator was Steve Ditko. There work "together" can be found in Spider-Man Omnibus Vol 1. All due respect to Ditko, but I'm kind of partial to the Lee/Romita partnership era of Spider-Man Omnibus Vol 2.

Excelsior!

Throwdown at the Toad Temple

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued, with our heroes still trying to figure out a way to free the Land of Under-Sea from the evil of the Temple of the Toad. After a night's rest to heal their wounds, they decide to infiltrate the temple during sunrise services. They are joined by the cat man Calico Jack. Smooth-talking there way past the guards ("as long as you sit in the back") the PCs saw the service, ending in the sacrifice of hapless froglings into the maw of the toad idol.

They noted the tapestries and friezes seem to denote some sort of apocalypse, that allow frog or toad people were spared, apparently under the protective hand of some sort of banjo-playing, messianic frog figure. They figure if push comes to shove, Waylon can inpersonate this "Frog Jesus."

While the cultist were distracted with their ritual, they pick the lock and enter one of the adjacent rooms. They find equipment they don't understand...

...including what appears to be a weapon, but when someone seems to be coming toward the door, they have to hurry into another room. Seeing signs of their entry evident, the cultist raise an alarm that is announced through the temple by a disembodied, feminine voice.

The party tries to make a break for it, but the doors are closed. They attack the guards and cult elite present in a pitch battle. The guards go down quickly, though there are a lot of them. The higher level cult members are armed with weapons that shoot searing beams of light. They nearly kill the Sorcerer, Kairon, with these weapons.

The high priest is particularly hard to kill, even with the party's concentrated attacks. He offers to parlay for their lives, but the party doesn't believe him. Erekose strides up and brings the fight to him. The High Priest emerges from cover to accept the challenge. He deals Erekose two devastating blows with his great sword, but now he's in the open and the party finishes him off.

Their victory is short lived, because more guards arrived. Shade releases the jade bear she acquired long ago, and Dagmar throws down her serpent staff, which becomes a giant python. The party and their animal allies kill the guards. For the moment, the temple nave is theirs...

Well-Met in Umberwell

I reject the notion that there is one right way to do a setting book. Those making the argument in favor of a more terse or utilitarian style often point to the bloat found in setting books by the major publishers. While I won't deny there is often a verbiage problem with those books, I'd also suggest that they are an easy target for the people making these sorts of arguments, i.e. members of a community to some degree defined by its opposition or at least contrast to major publishers' ways. While I'm sure not everyone is a fan for a number of reasons, I've never seen anyone cite The Tekumel Sourcebook volumes or Glorantha books as examples of overwriting.

There are two thoughts I have about setting books that (I think) better get to the truth of the situation. The most obvious one first: People like or want different things. Some people want to be transported, others just want prompts or aids. The second thought is that settings should be written in such a way as to make the setting more interesting, realized, and playable. Any verbiage not to this end is excess, but also any brevity that undermines those elements counts as a deficit.

All that preamble to cite an example of something that does it right, the third of such supplements to hit the mark, as I see it, by Jack Shear: Umberwell: Blackened Be Thy Name. Umberwell is one of a handful of 19th Century-ish fantasy settings in terms of technology, though the vibe is a bit Elizabethan underworld, a bit Dickensian nightmare, and a whole lot New Weird. It is also, as are all of Jack's settings, eminently integrated in a D&D environment, embracing the whole Star Wars cantina array of races and classes. it does this all in 134 pages.

The city has a European feel. Its island arrangement recalls Venice, and its character recalls London (or versions of London like New Crobuzon). It might be a bit Weimar Berlin in its decadence. There are bits of New Crobuzon evident, certainly, a bit of Sharn perhaps, and I perhaps flatter myself that I see some glimmers of the City in a couple of places, but it is its own thing.

It succeeds where Eberron, to my mind, fails. Eberron's vague, 21st Century Americanness skims across the top but does not penetrate the weird and Medievalist elements. Eberron is to genuine pulp sensibility what a guy sporting a fedora in an Instagram pic is to Sam Spade. Umberwell feels authentic (for lack of a better word), but never in a way that sacrifices it's fundamental D&Dness.

It is not complete, in the sense that it does not try to give you the totality of a world, nor does it attempt to. If any given Forgotten Realms splat is like a history or geography book, and Weird Adventures a travel guide, Umberwell is like a travel essay or TV show. It is painted in impressionistic strokes and focuses its efforts on the things that directly confront its visitors (i.e. the players and DM), only filling in other details as needed to color and accentuate those.

And yes, I'm thanked in the book, so my review is assuredly unbiased, but if anything I've written sounds interesting to you, so should check it out, then tell me I'm wrong.

The Saragossa Manuscript Redux

Yesterday, Amazon delivered the blu-ray version of the 1965 Polish film The Saragossa Manuscript directed by Wojciech Has. The film has been praised by the likes of David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Neil Gaiman. Jerry Garcia supposedly helped supply funds to get a full cut of the film restored. I have yet to check out the blu-ray transfer, but the film I know from the DVD version. It has impressive black and white imagery, and an unusual use of music--sometimes its a usual (if quirky) sixties film score, but often it has touches of primitive electronica experimentalism reminscient of some sci-fi scores of the era.

I first went looking for the film in 2010 because of its source material, the novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Count Jan Potocki (1761-1815). The book bears some resemblance to works like the Arabian Nights or the Decameron. It's a fantasy (at least in part) describing the experiences and stories related to a young Walloon officer in the Sierra Morenas of Spain in 1739. It includes gypsies, cabbalists, Sapphic sister Moorish princesses, and hints at secret history. The stories are nested like Matryoshka dolls, with narrators of some stories showing up as characters in others. Neil Gaiman, a fan of the work, has called it "a labyrinth inside of a maze." It combines elements of the gothic and picaresque with eroticism and humor.

The book itself has an interesting history. It's so convoluted in fact that Potocki's authorship was at times doubted. The novel was written in French, and over an extended period in several stages. The first few "days" were published in 1805 in French. Later, the entire manuscript was translated and published in Polish, but then the original complete manuscript was lost, and had to be "back translated" into French for a complete French version. Wikipedia suggests that scholars now think their were two versions: an unfinished one from 1804, published in 1885, and a rewritten, tonal different complete 1810 version. Only the first of these versions has appeared in English, though both are available in French.

Potocki himself is an interesting and character. He was served as a military officer, and was also for a time of novice of the Knights of Malta. He traveled and wrote scholarly studies on linguistics and ethnography. In 1790, he was among the first to fly in a hot air balloon. He also committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Allegedly, this was done with a silver bullet he fashioned himself and had had blessed by a chaplain!

Anyway the novel is well worth your time as is Has's film.