Cutting Through Evil-Doers in the Land of Azurth

 A Sunday of last week, our 5e Land of Azurth came continued with the group finishing our adaptation of the adventure "The Barber of the Silverymoon" by Jason Bradley Thompson. With the intelligence gleaned from the captive znarr, the group continued exploring the caves. They sound discovered the real Tom the Barber in an oubliette. He led them to a Mr. B. Zoar, the korred whose magic hair was the source of all this madness. The korred looked sort of like this guy:

With the source of the evil hair removed, the party went looking for the Znarr queen Zarvoola. They happened to rescue an old acquaintance of theirs, Calico Jack the Cat Man, along the way. 

They found Zarvoola surrounded by a horde of sycophant znarr. The well placed sleep spells cut down on the enemy forces and then they were really cut down by the arms of the fighters. Even the cleric got into the act with spells and mace.

In the end, Zarvoola's true identity as a hag was revealed, and what znarr were left beat a hasty retreat. The party assured all the prisoners were freed and left it in the hand's of the logical magical society to clean up the mess.

Forgotten Futures: Stanley Weinbaum

 

I've mentioned the science fiction of Stanley Weinbaum (1902-1935) on this blog before. I was pleased to discover that the free rpg for public domain setting, Forgotten Futures has a Weinbaum adaptation: Forgotten Futures XI: Planets of Peril. If nothing else the worldbook is great. 

You might want to check out the other Forgotten Futures rpgs are well.

Random Asteroids

Continuing my random old science fiction solar system generators here with one for the asteroid belt. The asteroids are much less specified than Mars or Venus in the fiction, but there are stories to draw on. The first thing to keep in mind is that asteroids in pulpish tales tend to be much closer together than in real life. Maybe not quite Empire Strikes Back asteroid field distance but close.

Basic Theme:

1  Gold in The Hills - The Belt is a rural backwater, but it draws prospectors and those who cater to them. Think boomtowns and eccentric mountain men spacers.

2  Islands in a Vast Sea - Strange societies, exotic ports of call. It's one part The Odyssey  and one part South Pacific adventures of  Voyage of the Scarlet Queen.

3  Lost Worlds - A more isolated version of the above. The Belt may even be mostly empty, but a few hidden worlds lurk there.

4  Place of Mystery - Mostly uninhabited now, but there are this wasn't always the case. There are tombs to rob, artifacts to loot.

Why is This Rock Different? (Note that the answer here will suggest things about other asteroids!) 

1  It's inhabited

2  It's a piece of some structure

3  It's actually a dwarf planetoid

4  It has an atmosphere and life despite it's small size

Who Are the Inhabitants?

1-2  Strange and varied beings, unknown elsewhere

3-4  The adventures, nonconformists, and/or criminals of other worlds

5-6  Native primitive human(oid)s--how they spread from rock to rock is a mystery

What Do Outsiders Do There?

1  Exploit Mineral Wealth

2  Exploit the Natives

3  Hiding Out

4  Homesteaders

5  Archeology/Exploration

6  Crashed/Maroon/Exiled

Selected Asteroid Belt Sources:

"Marooned off Vesta" Isaac Asimov

"Master of the Asteroid" Clark Ashton Smith 

"The World with A Thousand Moons" Edmond Hamilton

The Twilight Zone "The Lonely" 

"Trail of the Astrogar" Henry Hasse 

Weird Revisited: Encounters in A Martian Bar Before the Gunfight Started

Art by Jeff Call

01 A jovial human trader eager to unload a large, glowing jar containing squirming creatures he claims are Mercurian dayside salamanders.

02 A shaggy, spider-eyed Europan smuggler waits nervously for her contact.

03 Four pygmy-like “mushroom men," fungoid sophonts from the caverns of Vesta. They are deep in their reproductive cycle and close proximity gives a 10% chance per minute of exposure inhaling their spores.

04 A Venusian reptoid lowlander with jaundiced eyes from chronic hssoska abuse and an itchy trigger-claw.

05 Two scarred, old spacers in shabby flight suits.  They're of human stock mutated by exposure to unshielded, outlawed rocket drives.

07 A cloud of shimmering lights, strangely ignored by most patrons, dances around twin pale, green-skinned chaunteuses. It's  actually an energy being from the Transneptunian Beyond.

08 An aging, alcoholic former televideo star (and low level Imperial spy) with 1-2 hangers-ons.

09 A Venusian Wooly who just lost a Martian chess game to a young farm-hand who doesn't know any better.

10 A Martian Dune Walker shaman on his way to a ritual at a nearby Old Martian ruin, with a bag of 2d6 hallucinogenic, dried erg-beetles. He dreams of driving all off-worlders from Mars.

An "Old Solar System" of Your Own

The "Old Solar System" is a term that has been used to refer to the more romantic views of our planetary neighbors before space probes and better observations through a wet blanket of reality over the whole thing. 

Back in 2019, I wrote a series of posts with generators based ideas drawn from fiction of the era about the three most important worlds of the Old Solar System. Check them out and roll up your own version!

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Tuesday Comics: Election Day Edition

On this election day, it seemed approporate to point out a couple of presidential election related collections:

Prez is the title of two DC Comics about teenage presidents. The first debuted in his own short-lived title written by Joe Simon and drawn by Jerry Grandenetti in 1973. The series is predicated on the notion of a Constitutional amendment lowering the age for eligibility for office (which may have been inspired by the 1968 film Wild in the Streets). The upshot is a teenager gets elected, and who better than a earnest and idealistic kid from Middle America whose mother even named him “Prez” ‘cause she thought he’d be President one day? 

Finally, because you (or somebody) demanded it, The Prez has been collected. This collection includes the four issues of The Prez's run, an unpublished story from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2, and a continuity-twisting tale from Supergirl #10. Neil Gaiman brought Prez out of comics limbo in Sandman #54 in 1993. This led a sort of follow-up in Vertigo Vision: Prez. Miller and Morrison also used the Prez in Dark Knight Strikes Again #2 and the Multiversity Guidebook. All of these deuterocanonical texts are included, as well.

Over at Marvel, a talking duck from parallel Earth ran for President in 1976. Steve Gerber and Gene Colan put Howard the Duck in the middle of the election when he became the candidate for the All-Night Party. Their slogan: "Get Down America!"

This lampooning of the American electoral process is collected in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection vol. 1 along with a lot of other silliness.

Atomic Age Space Horror Inspirations

 In a recent post, I discussed what I saw as the possibilities of retro sci-fi horror of the gleaming rockets and stalwart spacemen variety, not the grubby, paycheck-seeking space jockey's popular in the Alien-inspired rpgs. I mentioned a few inspirations there, but I felt like a more extensive list was in order.

Comics:

Weird Fantasy (1950)

Weird Science (1950)

Incredible Science Fiction (1955)

Some stories in later anthology series like Alien Worlds (1982), Mystery in Space (1980 revival), Time Warp (1979)

Fiction:

"In the Walls of Eryx" H.P. Lovecraft.

Leigh Brackett stories including "Shannach - The Last," "Purple Priestess Mad Moon," etc.

Ray Bradbury. Early short fiction, including "Death-by-Rain" and "The City."

CL Moore. Northwest Smith Stories

Clark Ashton Smith science fiction, including "The Immeasurable Horror," "Vulthoom," and "Vaults of Yoh-Vombis."

A.E. van Vogt. Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950). It's a fix-up of previously published short stories "Black Destroyer," "Discord in Scarlet" (both of which bear some resemblance to Alien; the first also likely inspired the Star Trek episode "Man Trap"), "War of Nerves", and "M33 in Andromeda."

Stanley Weinbaum solar system stories particularly "Parasite Planet," "The Lotus Eaters," "The Mad Moon," and "Planet of Doubt."

Film & TV:

The Angry Red Planet (1959)

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Planet of Vampires (Terrore nello spazio) (1965)

Outer Limits, select episodes

Star Trek, select episodes including "The Cage," "The Man Trap," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" "Operation: Annihilate!" 

Twilight Zone, select episodes

Queen of Blood (1966)