Everything Goes Better with Ravenloft

Well, maybe not everything, but I think Ravenloft could mix with several of the other D&D settings like chocolate and peanut butter.

Art by Bruce Pennington

Blood Red Sun [Dark Sun/Ravenloft]
Some Dying Earth stories have more than a touch of the Gothic to them (Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories immediately come to mind), so this is really a natural. As the sun dimmed and sputtered, the Dark Powers grew stronger and fed upon the energy of the planet, slowing leeching it of life. Replace the sorcerer-kings with the Dark Lords, and (probably) loose the mists. Some tweaking of the domains might be in order, to make them a little less Dracula and a little bit more Vathek, but that's up to you.

Planet of the Vampires [Spelljammer/Ravenloft]
Each domain is a world, and the mists and phlogiston are combined into one. Maybe give Spelljammer more of a 18th Century or even Victorian vibe: Combine Kipling (his sci-fi stories like "With the Night Mail" and his horror yarns) with Stoker.

And why limit myself to AD&D settings?

Terror Under the Eternal Sun [Hollow World/Ravenloft]
I'm thinking ditch most of the Hollow World idea, except for it being the repository of things preserved from the outer world. Take it back to it's Burroughsian roots and have a land of dinosaurs and mostly primitive peoples, except for these areas and mists containing weird, otherworld realms of madness. Probably the realms of dreads should be a bit smaller, maybe just a castle and a village in some cases. Like Turok meets Dracula.

Wednesday Comics: Jimmy Olsen & Dragons

Weirdworld: Dragonmasters of Klarn
Back in 2010, I gave the rundown of Marvel's fantasy series Weirdworld. Most of it was collected back in 2015, but the story "Dragonmasters of Klarn" from 1981-1982 in Epic Illustrated and Marvel Super Action #1 by Moench, Buscema, Nebres, and Severin got left out. Marvel corrected that this week with a thin but complete collection of this story. While it's probably not as good as "Warriors of the Shadow Realm" is very much worth checking out.

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #1
Matt Fraction and Steve Olsen present a humorous tale of Superman's danger-prone pal (reminiscent in tone of Fraction's FF). Olsen is banned from Metropolis by his bosses at the Daily Planet (who tolerate the cost of insuring him because he's internet fandom is the only thing keeping the venerable paper afloat in the digital age) and winds up in Gotham! Easily my favorite read last week.

Weird Revisited: Sasquatch Variations

This post originally appeared in October 2013, but it's always a good time for 'squatch.

In a post-Harry and the Hendersons and Bigfoot and Wildboy world, your run of the mill Sasquatch may not pack the fearful punch it once did. In keeping with the season, here are a couple of sasquatch-like cryptids with a twist to move 'squatch back from "gentle giant" to "scary."

Batsquatch: First sighted in 1994 in Washington, batsquatch is an ape-like hominid with purple skin and batwings. (In other words, something like a scarier version of the winged monkeys in the Wizard of Oz). Stat these guys like a yeti, but add winged flight like a gargoyle.

Sheepsquatch: From the hills of West Virginia comes a cryptid also known as "the white thing." It's described as a bear-sized beast covered in thick, yellowish-white fur. It doesn't look much like the usual sasquatch with its low set eyes, goat-liked horns, raccoon-like hands, and a hairless tail like an opossum. I would use giant wolverine stats for these beasties (minus the musk).

Blue Belt Bigfoot: One of the few hairy hominids known to accessorize, the so-called Blue Belt Bigfoot has only been sighted in California and only on a few of occasions. It's essentially a a regular sasquatch (perhaps with a dog-like face) with a glowing blue belt. Sometimes, they travel in groups. I'd probably treat these guys as bugbears (just because) and give the belt some special power--or maybe not (other than the glowing) just to mess with PCs.

Omniverse: Incumbents are from Earth, Sivanas are from Venus

In September of 1936, all across America aircraft beginning dropping flyers proclaiming a new candidate for the highest office in the land. At the urging of her father, Beautia Sivana was running for President. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana planned to stage a coup once his daughter was in office. Hers was the most massive, multi-media, write-in campaign this country has ever seen. Her beautiful visage graced the covers of magazines and full page newspaper ads. Her captivating voice could be heard on radio addresses. Women were cool to her candidacy, but men were enthralled. Most men. Boy reporter, Billy Batson, wasn’t fooled one bit. His alter ego, Captain Marvel foiled the Sivanas’ plot and returned mad scientist and would-be president to Venus*, where Beautia would have to content herself with being Empress.

Ultimately, Beautia didn’t share her father’s devotion to evil and in fact pursued a career in social work upon her return to Earth, according to some accounts.

*Or what Sivana said was Venus. It is difficult to square the real planet with its depiction in this record.

Spelljammer: Dead Stars & Outer Monstrosites

Art from the Oldstyle Tales Press edition

As we understand the word," said the old Doctor. "Though, mind you, there may be a third factor. But, in my heart, I believe that it is a matter of chemistry; Conditions and a suitable medium; but given the Conditions, the Brute is so almighty that it will seize upon anything through which to manifest itself. It is a Force generated by Conditions; but nevertheless this does not bring us one iota nearer to its explanation, any more than to the explanation of Electricity or Fire. They are, all three, of the Outer Forces—Monsters of the Void.... 

- William Hope Hodgson, "The Derelict"

I've been thinking about a Spelljammer recently that keeps the basic concept but utterly jettisons the feel or flavor. Spelljammer has never felt me to be about exploration, rather the vessels flying through spaces seem a means to an end. There's nothing wrong with that, but plenty of science fiction literature paints space as a place for confronting the unknown. This is really a perfect fit for Spelljammer where its pre-modern, "magical" spacecraft put the stars within reach but not the science to understand any of it. Not that there is necessarily science as we know it to understand, in any case.

I think I would look to the horror/adventure stories of William Hope Hodgson, specifically his nautical yarns like The Boats of the Glen Carrig, "The Voice in the Night," "A Tropical Horror," and "Demons of the Sea." A little pseudo-science borrowed from his Carnacki stories could only help.

The characters are competent space-hands, perhaps mildly colorful rogues like Howard's Wild Bill Clanton or just working stiffs like the crew of the Nostromo in Alien, not bold explorers or science fantasy swashbucklers. Their jobs involving them going through places that are not (usually) inhabited by hostile species of space orcs or the like, but are instead fundamentally almost wild, always strange. Weird danger can rear it's head at any time, and your vessel is just another ship that disappeared in the Void.

Weird phenomena should be encountered as frequently as monsters, I think. Monsters, when they do show up should be unfamilar, and probably not seen enough to become mundane.

Beyond the stories of Hodgson and Alien, other potential sources of inspiration could be the comic series Outer Darkness, the science fiction stories of Clark Ashton Smith, Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and of course, Moby Dick. 

Wednesday Comics: Dreadstar Omnibus

I backed the 3 volume Dreadstar Omnibus Kickstarter from Ominous Press, and the digital versions dropped yesterday. They look great and include some material that I haven't seen before.

Though the Kickstarter is over, you can still pre-order the books.

The Mysterious Levers of Castle Machina

The part climbed the stairway to level two in the scuttling Castle Machina as our 5e campaign continued last night. The strange droning sound unsettled their nerves, but they persevered. They discovered another room full of vast machinery, mate to the room below it, that kept the castle moving. Then, they found a room full of cast of spare gears, mounds of them, and a bank of levers in the floor.  A search of the room awakened metallic, insectoid guardians.

The party backed away, intuiting that the constructs protected the levers.

Next, they discovered a sauna-like room where three salamanders were playing games of change. Once one of them produced a translation device, they were able to converse with the party. They told them they had been hired from the Realm of Fire to help in the construction of parts of the castle, and they had been on their union mandated break for some time. They had never heard of a "Princess" but they knew a mad clockwork being was interfaced with the castle like it was her nervous system. Kully wanted to gamble with them, but they never could arrive at items them salamanders considered valuable.

They tried climbing the stairs to the next level, but the droning sound was more overwhelming. Waylon and Dagmar were struck with paralyzing fear, and Shade flew into a violent rage and had to be subdued. Deciding that braving the maddening noise was too risky, they returned to the room with the levers, intent on possibly bringing the castle to a halt.

They experimented with mage hand, but moving the lever had no effect. They decided to destroy the guardians to experiment more fully. The energy weapons they had stolen from the priests of the Toad Temple were instrumental in accomplishing that, as regular weapons had little effect. In their deaths, the constructs exploded with damaging fireballs.

Battered but now with full access to lever, the party started to experiment in earnest and found...well, not much. Most of the levers seemed to have no visible effect. They long debated pulling the "Portal Reversal" lever, but some feared it would release the imprisoned fire creature that heated the boiler. In the end, they decided it was too risky.

A plan was hatched to use Silence to explore the next level.

TO BE CONTINUED