Sentinel Comics RPG Session 4: "The Heart of Darkness"

Roll Call:

Blur: Amnesiac Speedster!

Fibbit: Manic Pixie Extradimensional Dream Girl!

Infranaut: IR-Powered Celebrity Hero!

Il Masso: The Rock-Solid Hero of Little Italy!

Supporting Characters: Moonshadow

Villains: Dark Duplicates (Mindfire, Warhead, Sub-Zero, Talon, Robrute); The Void Crystal, Silver Orb, Gold Orb.

Synopsis: Our heroes enter combat with the five villains, and after a couple of exchanges to gauge their powers, find them surprisingly easy to defeat. Moonshadow, via psychic link, tells them that these are merely "dark energy shadows" of a group of young heroes from alternate futures: The Legion of Alternity. She believes their presence here means they have been captured by Anachronus.

With the duplicates defeated, the group sets out to find the location of the evil energy with the Never. Fibit manages to locate but also draws strange, translucent wasp creatures to them. Their presence shakes our heroes resolve but doesn't cause any real damage. They also have to face dark duplicates of Talon and Sub-Zero again, before they reach their destination: A sinisterly pulsing crystal in which they see scenes of other times, perhaps other worlds. Flying around it are gold and silver orbs that attack the heroes.

The team is confronted with their most difficult battle so far. All of the duplicates are recreated, and they quickly re-appear when destroyed. The orbs work against them and protect the crystal. Il Masso shatters the gold orb and Fibit twice creates duplicates of her own to make attacks on all the dark duplicates. Eventually, Infranaut makes a massive attack that shatters the weakened crystal and destroys the silver orb.

My Less Popular Setting Ideas

 Not ever post is a winner, particularly in these days where blog-reading is at an ebb, but some ideas seem to garner more approval than others. It's not uncommon for a single, dashed off post not to attract an attention, but occasionally there are ideas I write multiple posts on that just don't seem to make what readers I have here and on other social media as enthusiastic as they make me. Admittedly, none of these I've actually tried to play, so maybe they just don't have what it takes despite my blogging interest in them. Anyway, here are three of them:

Scavengers of the Latter Days

Far future, rationalized ("hard"). science fantasy. I've written several posts on various permutations of this. The comments often suggest this appeals to me more than it does others. In fact, after my various riffs on uses of the the Great Wheel, this may be the D&D idea that seems to appeal to my readers the least. 

Planet of the Elves

Here, maybe it's about the presentation. I got a bit more positive reception when I presented the same idea but de-emphasized the post-apocalyptic nature and didn't mention elves in the name (and to be fair, the initial post garnered better comment than I remembered on the blog). Anyway, this is Ploog/Bakshi/Wood sort of stoner, fairytale fantasy.

Ways & Sigils

Ok, this one is admittedly a bit weird because it is really a science fiction or science fantasy thing, that just happens to borrow some elements from some classic D&D settings. Anyway, the idea is that in the future, essentially the Great Wheel is discovered via hyperspace, so it's a bit sci-fi Spelljammer+Planescape. I wrote a follow-up post, then sort of did a slightly different version of the same idea later.

Wednesday Comics: DC, July 1980 (part 1)

I'm continuing my read through of DC Comics output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around April 10, 1980.

All-Out War #6: Kanigher and Evans pull an unexpected Buck Rogers (original version) riff, with Viking Commando transported briefly to a post-apocalyptic future with Yellow Peril Asians who revere Hitler trying to kill a girl with an outfit like Shakira in Warlord. After that, there's a really grounded story of the Seabees. Black Eagle and crew take on a submarine. A WWI doughboy runs away to hide in a cave for years, but comes out to kill some approaching Germans in WWII. The best story here is the Force 3 yarn. It's not Grandenetti's best art on the strip, but istory-wise it feels like a capstone, with brief origins presented for the three--and then they get to kill Hitler! And this story is a capstone, given this is the final issue of All-Out War and the last appearance to date of Force 3 and Black Eagle.

Batman #325: There's a fill-in writer, Roger McKenzie, but weirdly they let him tie up the storyline with the challenge to Gordon's leadership of the GCPD. The title page suggests Batman is trying to kill Gordon, but in Silver Age style, it's a lie. It is actually a scene from the story, though, which is a bit unusual. Not a bad issue, but nothing notable.

DC Comics Presents #23: This one has a lot going on, which is par for the course for Superman titles in this era. O'Neil and Staton set up Dr. Fate as trying to find a cure for a generational curse that is turning his wife into a monster, but he needs the corpse of her ancestor, and that guy isn't in the grave. Meanwhile, on Earth-1, a physics experiment brings a flying pirate galleon from the past of Earth-2 to Earth-1--with Inza'a ancestor as captain. Superman discovers an imp with a grudge against the pirate is involved. Dr. Fate arrives in time to wrap it all up.

Flash #28: Another pretty good one from Bates and Heck. Doctor Alchemy is back, despite Al Desmond's supposed reform. Has Barry Allen's friend reverted to his criminal ways?

Ghosts #90: This issue is weaker than most (and that's saying something), or maybe it only feels that way because the cover story "Phantom of the Disco" doesn't really do much with that intriguing title. The Kashdan/Nicholas yarn has a murderous heroin addict hiding from the cops in a disco, but the ghost of the girlfriend he killed makes him reveal himself to the police. The lead story has a weird, elemental monster and a cursed ship captain, but no actual ghost. The middle story is one of the standard "a ghost can't hurt a person but can make them do something stupid" tales. It's sort of a staple for this comic.

Jonah Hex #34: I like Spiegle's art, but he definitely isn't the definitive Jonah Hex artist. The scar doesn't quite work. He does make him look a bit like Josh Holloway, which is interesting. Anyway, this story--about a gang after gold in a hidden valley sacred to the Cree--is pretty good, if fairly standard stuff.

Justice League of America #176: Conway doesn't beat around the bush. This issue starts with the whole JLA busting in on the Satin Satan's sanctum to rescue Firestorm. The final battle occurs at a roller disco called Hell on Wheels. There's the suggestion that the Satin Satan was possessed by the a demon, but the last panel casts doubt on that. We never find out, because this is her last appearance, which is too bad.

Secrets of Haunted House #26: The cover story is a EC riff by J.M. DeMatteis and Nicholas and Gil about a boy with an imaginary friend and a horrible foster family. Spoiler: the friend's not imaginary and the foster family dies one by one. The other two stories are kind of dumb: A guy kills his twin for a heart transplant and dies in the same elevator shaft due to his brother's ghost, and a forcibly retired conductor gets to drive Merlin's toy train forever.

Superman #349: Pasko and Swan have Superman returning from a trip into space to a gender-switched Earth--and the various superfolks think he's a notorious criminal! Turns out it's all a trick by Mxyzptlk, which is telegraphed in a couple of clues early on. It's a nice story of the Superman type.

Superman Family #202: The jerk Supergirl is crushing on apparently isn't cured of being accidentally super-hypnotized by her into becoming a superhero. He causes all kinds of trouble until she can recreate the accident and un-super-hypnotize him. A Bridwell/Schaffenberger Mr. and Mrs. Superman tale reveals when the Earth-2 Superman first encountered Kryptonite, and how he found out about Krypton. Rozakis and Calnan give Clark Kent jury duty, where (on the sly) he helps one Angry Man convince the other jurors to acquit. Lois helps a ballerina to defect from Russia by impersonating her in a Conway scripted tale with nice art by Oksner and Colletta. In the final story, Jimmy Olsen gets rescued from criminals by a high school journalism student.

Weird War Tales #89: The cover to this issue has Nazi Gorillas. If you know Bronze Age comics, you will already have a suspicion the story doesn't live up to the cover. It doesn't, but Kashdan and Landgraf do give us gorillas. The best story this issue is a perhaps goofy but affecting tale by Kanigher and Rubeny about WWI soldiers rising from their battlefield graves to save their sons from dying at the same spot in WWII. Rubeny's mood and sometimes gruesome (for the Comics Code) art sells it.

Wonder Woman #269: Stressed out over all her recent life upheavals, Wonder Woman decides to pack it in and return to Paradise Island. There's she's got a giant monster to fight. I've read beyond this, so I know, but on the basis of this issue, I think you'd be hard-pressed to guess where Conway is going with all this.

More from the Alex Toth Casting Agency

 More Alex Toth art, subtle for NPCs or monsters:

The Lake of Vermilion Mists

On shores of the Lake of Vermilion Mists nearly-naked, female divers inspect their haul of rare, ultramarine scintilla. Here and there their bodies bear what appear to be wave-like, mauve tattoos, darkened to the color of fresh bruises in the lake’s lurid, roiling glow. The marks are actually scars from the lash of urulu tentacles. The divers become tolerant to the hallucinogenic effects over time but not the pain, so they try to snatch the scintilla when the urulu are lost in pre-mating combat dances.

The urulu do not seem to value the scintilla or pre-scintilla clusters, but they zealously guard their territory and do not communicate or trade with humans or other sophonts as far as is known. Indeed, humankin long held them to be merely animals, despite their rituals and tool use, but the view of hwaopt academics that they are in fact sapient is the current prevailing theory.

There is a black market for the urulu toxin. Unscrupulous procurers use desperate addicts as lures to provoke ururlu to the shallows where they can be ensnared and their tentacles milked.

The urulu, despite their vague resemblance to cephalopods of Old Earth, are air breathers. The lake is no lake in the traditional sense, but instead a large depression filled with a thick, red mist, with currents of darker or lighter shades, and the occasional flash of static discharge. It is unknown where the mist is natural or a product of ancient ieldra magic, but there is no other body of its type known. 

Weird Revisited: Two Towns

The original version of this post appeared in 2018. These settlements go in this world, but certainly could be placed elsewhere.

Tuskinth: A village whose primary industry is nonnig husbandry. it specializes in the so-called healing breed of furry nonnig, whose purring and warmth is said to have a calming influence on the nerves which aids in healing, and of course, nonnig of any breed are highly nutritious and flavorful. The nonnig yards are composed of hill-mounds surrounded by small moats (the nonnigs avoid water). The nonnig breeders can be recognized by the mail gauntlets they wear on their left hands, to protect themselves from the sting of the mound wyrms that form a symbiotic relationship with the nonnigs and protect them from predation with the warrens. Some nonnig breeders may keep small mounds of scintilla-sniffers on the side, but the practical folk of Tuskinth look down upon treasure-seekers.

Harfo and Sons is the most prosperous of the breeders, though many in Tuskinth would opine that only the old man, Grenz Harfo has any particular head for nonnig-breeding. His eldest son, Halx, is a handsome dullard, and his youngest. Festeu, is a idler and wastrel. Of note, he does own a rare (outside of the Daor Obdurate) telesthetic hound. The poor beast is quite mad, made so by an over-sensitivity to human anxieties resulting from over-breeding. Its shrew-like snout is has a-quiver and dripping, and it's whip-like tail sways nervously.

Horbizond: Was the name of an ancient city, and also the current modest village that squats in a meager portion of it. The people of Horbizond dress in the decaying finery of the ancients and appoint their over-sized but crumbling homes in an equally ostentatious fashion. They live in holy dread of the Prismatic Man, an angular, crystalline visitant, who materializes at random intervals to isolated folk of the town. The actions of the Prismatic Man are various and strange. He has at times pointed with a glassy finger to hidden treasures. Other times, he has emitted a chiming that the hear perceived as some spiritual wisdom. Then there are the occasions when he has seemed to produce rays of color from his palms that struck an individual dead. If there is any rationale to whom the Prismatic Man favors and whom he destroys, the folk of Horbizond have yet to discern it. In fact, they believe it would be blasphemous to do so. The Hwaopt Library is willing to pay for detailed observations of the Prismatic Man, whose nature and purpose they are eager to discover.

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1980 (part 2)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around March 27, 1980.

Action Comics #508: The mystery of Jonathan Kent is revealed. Turns out he's briefly time traveling thanks to the friendly (and powerful, apparently) aliens from Superboy. The unfortunate side effect of his travel was a cloud of weird smoke than empowered the hippy. This isn't bad, but it's overly  complicated and not particularly exciting.

Adventure Comics #472: More of the same Starman and Plastic Man stuff. The Plastic Man story continues with the Dick Tracy-esque villains. This issue's primary antagonist is Lowbrow who is really dumb, buy manages to run a criminal enterprise, somehow.

Brave & the Bold #163: Kupperberg and Giordano present this topical team-up with Black Lightning where a general is building a stolen reserve of oil. Black lightning is without powers here as established in this months Detective.

Detective Comics #491: These anthologies can be a slog, but there's an okay Jason Bard story by Barr and Spiegle with the intriguing opening of the detective putting flowers of the grave of the man who killed his father. The Pasko/Broderick Black Lightning story has him losing his powers, which seems like a misstep. The Burkett/Delbo Batgirl story has her in an assassin's crosshairs as Barbara Gordon goes to work for the Social Services Department. 

Green Lantern #129: The usual team of O'Neil and Staton are back. The Qwardian general, Fabrikant, disguised as a kid turns Carol Ferris back into Star Sapphire to attack Green Lantern. Also, Hal Jordan has conflict with a reckless cowboy of a test pilot, Rance Rideout.  

House of Mystery #281: A boxer with a fatal heart condition fights on after his death thanks to voodoo in a tale by Arnold Drake and Joel Magpayo. In the second story by Wessler and Redondo a doctor at an asylum uses impressionable youth to carry out murders.

Legion of Super-Heroes #264: Turns out horn-headed Dagon has a grudge against Brande. The Legionnaires solve the mystery of his identity and his location. A fine ending to a so-so story.

New Adventures of Superboy #6: The cover to this issue lies! A cop comes from Metropolis to convince Superboy to re-locate to the big city, but in the end he decides to stay in Smallville for now.

Sgt. Rock #341: Kanigher and Rubeny introduce a quirky new recruit to Easy--who dies, of course, but not before coming out with a hang-gliding plan that saves the unit. The Kelley/Estrada backup is a grim tale of the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Super Friends #33: Bridwell and Fradon have the Super Friends tangling with the Menagerie Man, World's Greatest Animal Trainer, who has a very silly costume.

Time Warp #5: This is the last issue of this title, and it doesn't really go out with a bang. At best they are sort of modern EC comics sort of sci-fi yarns. None are really standouts, but some are definitely dumber than others.

Unexpected #199: This one is the best of these horror anthologies for a couple of months. "Dracula's Daughter" by Kashdan with art that reminds me a bit of Joe Maneely by Lee Elias has double EC-style twists regarding who the real vampire is. "Project Eternity" by de Matteis and Henson sees an experiment in simulating death complicated by a psychic fight over the scientist between his current girlfriend and his dead wife. His wife makes it make to the land of the living in the girlfriend's body, and the girlfriend...well, I won't spoil it.

Unknown Soldier #240: Haney and Ayers have the Unknown Soldier reluctantly teaming up with a French resistance leader who is obsessed with recovering the Hammer of Charles Martel which has fallen into German hands. As is almost required in a story with this concept, the climax involves a Nazi commander getting walloped with a war hammer.

Warlord #34: Morgan gets a new sword while Mariah and Machiste have an adventure in Wizardworld. Read more about it here. 

Weird Western Tales #68: A little better than last issue, as Scalphunter helps a group of snow bound travelers might of a group of Confederates intent on stealing a train. The gold from last issue winds up lost in a fire.

World's Finest Comics #263: The lead story here by O'Neil, Buckler and Giordano is the resolution to Bob Haney's "Super-Sons" stories of the 70s. Turns out they were only a computer simulation. Whether you thought the Super-Sons were cool or not, that seems sort of lame. The Green Arrow story by Haney and von Eeden sees Oliver Queen drawing a lot of heat (and praise) for one paragraph editorials, taking on a shady redevelopment project. Captain Marvel, Jr. takes on a villain whose schtick is he's really old. I don't mean like Vandal Savage, I mean a guy that spent 99 years in prison. There are also Aquaman and Adam Strange stories, but there's not much to them.