Pruning the Weed of Evil

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night. The party had found what they were pretty certain was the gem containing the soul of Slekht Zaad, but like the good adventurers they are, they decided to loot the rest of the Shrine of the Black Lotus to make sure they didn't leave anything valuable behind.

They fought a mummy and some carrion crawlers for their trouble, but gained some gems and gold--and a few magic items including the mysterious Boots of Elvis-Kind.

Returning to Dhoon, Eric Goodbeard, priest of Azulina, told them the gem would like need to be in the vicinity of Zaad to make him vulnerable. He suggested they parley and offer an exchange for the the cure to the curse infecting the local Duke and the fay-flowers of Shkizz. The party sent Zaad a message offering a meeting on the outskirts of town, but what they intended was an ambush.

Slekht Zaad, protected by his invulnerability, showed alone. He hadn't reckoned on Waylon and Erekose being present and invisible. Zaad kept his distance, but when he moved to pick up the gem from where Kully had left it, Waylon swooped in to pick it up. A fight broke out, with Zaad slinging some powerful spells and the party being unable to damage him, until Waylon got into melee range with the gem.

Suddenly, the gem's glow faded, and Erekose's next blow bit deep into Zaad's flesh. The party hit him hard. He was a powerful foe, but he was no match for all of them ganging up on him. Kairon delivered the coup de grace with firebolts.

Now, there was the matter of the trecherous Draco Battles and the lifting of the curses.

Weird Revisited: Ways & Sigils

The original version of this post appeared in 2015...

When humanity discovered there was a way to cheat relativity, we found, to our surprise, that it was a lot like magic. The paths that shortcut distance and connected many universes were built by ancients no species remembered--though everyone had stories. A popular one was that the precursor culture came from outside the ordered universes, from a manifold or bulk whose physical laws would have been more familiar to Jung or Frazer than Einstein or Hawking. We called it "hyperspace." It sounded more scientific than "the astral plane."

Computers, even the most advanced AI, were mostly confused by the Ways. They could tell you a lot about the apertures, but they couldn't decipher the symbols that needed to be inscribed on the hulls of craft in order to make the apertures open or to arrive safely at a desired destination. And so the casters arose; they were people with the mental aptitude to understand the ways and create the symbols needed to traverse them successfully. With a good caster, a vessel can get almost anywhere.

Sometimes, though, ships wind up someplace other than their intended destination or just disappear entirely. At times the casting is probably to blame; encoding multidimensional state vectors into a compressed, symbolic representation has always been more intuition than science, and the internal state of the caster has always been a variable. Sometimes there's just a glitch--an act of God, you might say. Who knows what might distract the hypersophont entities or idiot gods in the machinery of the multiverse that "read" the sigils and guide ships to their destinations?

So the lucky and lost just wind up making an extra stop or two before their final destination. The unlucky truly lost disappear entirely. But there are a few, the stories say, that turn after a long absence with strange stories. There's a city at the center of the multiverse, these haunted-eyed travelers will tell you. A city where castaway alien vessels from infinite universes wind up. A city so vast, so old, so integral, that it doesn't have a name, just a single location sigil-- the Sigil. That's what they call it.

To Boldly Go

Not for the first time since I started writing this blog over a decade ago, I am playing on running a Star Trek game. After some indecision, I've decided to use Star Trek Adventures. I was initially put off by some of the mechanics, but after watching some play videos and reading a good bit of the rules, I think it's a niffy system. Good enough to give a try, at least.

My idea is to run the game in the so-called "Lost era," specifically the time between the original series and the movies. If we follow the Okuda timeline, that would be around 2270. The characters will be the crew of a refitted Constitution class starship, the U.S.S. Endeavour (NCC-1895), sent on a five-year mission of exploration. The design of the ship will predate the ST:TMP refit, allowing me to use the abandoned design for Star Trek: Phase II, which is sort of the "missing link."

ST: Phase II, for those that don't know, was the proposed tv show they were working on before Paramount decided to use the script for the pilot to make a movie. It's aspects reflect a distinctly 70s Trek as the production art shows.

Anyway, it I'm looking forward to it. If you are interesting in reading more about it, Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens is the best place to do that.

Wednesday Comics: New Comics

I've been on a diet of back issues during the pandemic related stop/slowdown of new comics, but picked up my first new releases in over a month last week.

The Goddamned: The Virgin Brides #1 

Jason Aaron's and R.M. Guéra's grim, Book of Genesis derived, fantasy but this time without Cain--at least in the first issue. Instead, it concerns religious cult that operate a home for young girls who they offer up as brides to "angels" as they come of age. A marriage that often ends in the wife's death and leads to the birth of monstrous offspring. Two of the girls plot to make their escape.

This was not what I expected in the second volume of the series, but it's just as engaging as the first.

Protector #4

I've mentioned this science fiction series set in a post-climate-change-apocalypse America before. It continues to an intriguing story in an interesting setting.

Weird Revisited: The Alien Underground

This post first appeared in 2013...

"In February of 1981, it became horrifyingly clear the ominous occurrences beneath Centralia were not the result of a coal seam fire. On the night of Valentine's Day, a 4 foot wide sinkhole in a backyard disgorged something more than toxic vapors. The next day, the reports of shocked survivors and the physical remains of creatures unknown to science attested to the stunning fact that humankind had experienced it's first verified encounter with extraterrestrials. Instead of coming down from the stars, they had risen from the subterranean depths.

It was the first, but it would not be the last. Very soon the words 'maze', 'breach", and 'irruption' would take on new, more specialized meanings."

- John Kiehl, The Abyss Gazes: A History of the Underground Invasion (1995)

"Despite appearances, the mazes are not located within the lithosphere. All evidence suggests they are engineered spacetime features similar in some respects to wormholes. They interface exclusively with subterranean environments, though these may be naturally occurring or man-made. Areas of interface--or breach--are associated with paranormal phenomena.

The interiors of the mazes are generally supportive of earth-like life. Indeed, they show evidence of longterm utilization and habitation by extraterrestrial organisms. Many are still inhabited by extraterrestrial biologic entities who perhaps (like humans) discovered the mazes through breaches on their worlds. Despite the obvious the intelligence of these entities, attempts at communication have been limited due to their hostility. Many appear to regard the mazes and the material culture of uncountable previous explorers and colonists found therein as their property alone.

The tensions around contact with these entities have only been exacerbated by the actions of looters and thrill-seekers illegally entering the mazes, despite the efforts of world governments..."

- UN Report on Extraterrestrial Subterranean Structures and their Inhabitants (1991)

"Q: By whom was the Dulce installation constructed?

A: There are natural caverns, first off. Big ones. Bigger than Carlsbad, even. These caverns have been connected to the mazes since prehistoric times. The Draco [reptilian humanoids] used the caverns and tunnels for thousands of years. The original caverns included ice caves, sulfur springs, and energy 'hotspots' that the ’aliens’ found perfect for their needs. Later, the U.S. government enlarged the area. According to several senior maintenance workers I talked with, part of it was blasted out by nuclear devices in the sixties. There are sections, like the shuttle tunnels, that were formed by an advanced tunneling machine powered by arcane technology that leaves the tunnel walls completely smooth. The walls in those tubes look like polished black glass.

Q: The 1960s? So you're certain the government's awareness of the mazes and aliens didn't just start in the 80s?

A: Absolutely. Every President since Grover Cleveland has had high level talks with aliens from the mazes. Certain secret societies and occult groups, of course, have also been aware of them for a long time."

Q: Was there ever any talk of delvers at Dulce?

A: Both the 'aliens' and the human agents were very aware of them. The government's official line is that the delvers are a nuisance. That was the attitude you got from the human agents working there. The 'aliens', on the other hand, saw the delvers as much more of an affront. What you see in the media is only part of it. There are paramilitary bands--sometimes funded and equipped by so-called 'rogue elements' of various governments. There's basically a covert war going on."

- Transcript from "A Dulce Insider Speaks Out"

Weird Revisted: A Map from Ages Past

This post originally over 10 years ago. It was my first "popular" post...

This map was drawn by my cousin, Tim, who introduced me to gaming back in the earlier '80s.  Somehow, it came into my possession years--decades--ago. 

We never gamed in this dungeon.  I don't know if Tim did with another group.  I've thought about using it myself on several occasions, but I don't know if I ever did.  Since the various iterations of my campaign world relate to Tim's rather bare-bones world in a fashion similar to the relationship the Marvel Universe has to Timely Comics, Kazoth has been mentioned at times.  I've always conceived of him as one of those demon/monster/god-things, like Thog, or similar creatures, from Robert E. Howard's oeuvre. 

Looking closely at the map, I see several interesting things:

It amuses me that the innermost sanctum of Kazoth (where he has his own chamber) also houses his vestal virgns "and such" (whatever that might mean) and his sacrificial victims-to-be.  This says to me Kazoth is the kind of god-thing who would have a mini-fridge full of drinks in his den.  He just doesn't want to go far for stuff. 

Its interesting the walls of these chambers are rough-hewn (I assume that's what that means), suggesting it might be older than the rest of the complex.

 Most intriguing is the secret passage surrounding Kazoth's chamber.  I wonder what purpose that serves?  Perhaps its a doctrine of the faith that Kazoth's taking of sacrifices must be recorded in gory detail, so scribes watch unobtrusively to do just that.  Or maybe Kazoth gets cranky if his every need isn't responded to instantly, and its just for convenience?

Moving to the other side of the complex we find the mysterious Room of Illusions.  I assume all the "X's" are locations of various illusions.  Why would a temple complex need this?  I'm not sure. Maybe its for psychological torture to make a sacrificial victim juicer for old Kazoth.

Leaving the Room of Illusions, one encounters several traps (the dotted lined areas) which I suspect are probably trapdoors.  So many traps in one place perhaps argues against my explanation for the illusion room, but perhaps there just here because of those three treasure chests.

On the other hand, the naming of the Passage of No Return reinforces the notion that most who saw the Room of Illusions were on a one way trip.

I think the name of the last area I'll comment on may give away its inspiration.  The Room of Souls may have at least acquired its its title from the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark--I would suspect specifically from Kenner's Well of Souls playset. 

I could see the statues there supporting a Raiders connection as well, though I'm sure these statues come to life at some inopportune time for the players.

At least that's how I'd do it.

Weird Revisited: Hohmmkudhuk

The original version of this post appeared in 2016...

Art by Jason Sholtis

Hohmmkudhuk* are dwarfish beings resembling bipedal anteaters whose dorsal surface is covered with over-lapping, plate-like scales similar to a pangolin's. They spend much of their life underground in great subterranean halls or warrens. They are clannish and eusocial. Each hall belongs to a Queen, though her holdings are managed by her mate or mates, the Drone-Princes, of which there may be as many as three.

Only the Queen and her consorts reproduce, the rest of the clan is made up of their siblings and children who are sterile. Children are raised communally and in the same way: they pass through a sort of apprenticeship, doing low-skilled tasks as soon as they are able, then advancing to the role of warrior, trader or artisan as they so aptitude and develop the appropriate skills.

If the Queen dies or decides it is time to create a daughter-clan, one of her female progeny becomes able to reproduce and becomes a new queen. This new Queen will have a mate from an unrelated clan. These unions are arranged to form alliances, but their is also a strong tradition of wandering male adventurers winning the heart of a young queen.

Hohmmkudhuk know the ways of the underground and the working of stone. Their magic is bent to this purpose. They personify the planet itself as a goddess.

Hohmmkudhuk Traits
Ability Score Increase. Constitution score is increased by 2 and Wisdom is increased by 1.
Alignment. Hohmmkudhuk tend toward lawfulness.
Size. Hohmmkudhuk are around 4 feet tall, but heavy for their height.
Speed. Base walking speed is 25 feet.
Darkvision. Accustom to life underground Hohmmkudhuk can see 60 feet within dim light as if it were bright light.
Natural Armor. Due to their scales, Hohmmkudhuk get a +1 bonus to Armor Class.
Resilence. Hohmmkudhuk have an advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance against poison damage.
Languages. Hohmmkudhuk can speak and read the Common language of humans. They also speak and read their on consonant-laden, rumbling tongue.

*pronounced ho-hmmm-ku-thuk, where u is as in put and th as in though.