Dark Sun: City-States and Sorcer-Kings

art by Alcatena

The main action of the first Dark Sun material is set in the Tyr Region, also called the Tablelands. This is an area a bit bigger than the land area of Britain or a bit smaller than the land area of Colorado, for comparison. There are seven city-states, each (at least in the beginning) ruled by a Sorcerer-King.

Thinking about revising Dark Sun with the elements I mentioned before in mind, but also with any eye to the setting's inspirations, I find the Tyr region a little bland. Each of the city-states has a real world culture as inspiration (sometimes maybe a mashup of two), which gives you a bit more of a hook than just generic D&D Sword & sorcery city-states, true, but I think we can do better--at least in terms of my stated goals.

Here I would look to Planetary Romance, as it's a genre full of city-states separated by desert: Mars/Barsoom and Llarn (from two Gardner Fox novels) come to mind, but there are lot of others, and we don't need to limit ourselves to inspiration from only desert planet planetary romance. What these stories typically portray are cities at once more homogenous and more flavorful than Dark Sun's as presented. 

Most Planetary Romance takes place in a cultural region sometimes covering a whole planet. The cities in that region mostly have the same political arrangements, speak the same language, and have a consistent material culture. In order to make then distinct (and interesting places for adventure), they tend to have one unusual thing about them. It could be one of the things I mentioned above is slightly different or it could be the pursuit of some exotic pastime, a cultural eccentricity, an exotic terrain/natural resource or something physically about its people. (Flash Gordon and Mad Max: Fury Road represent the extreme end of this, perhaps, with polities that are essentially themed.) The more flavorful unique elements, of course, tend to be on the fantastic side rather than the mundane. My post on the Sword & Planet setting of Zarthoon illustrates this, though it leans a little in the Flash Gordon direction. Still, it gives you the idea.

This game in Storm is one of those unique elements

Dark Sun at once makes the cities a bit distinct in terms of mundane details, but they are mostly lacking that hook--a fantastic element to spur adventure. The Dark Sun cities in most cases don't have a high concept thumbnail description, unless you reference what real world culture inspired them.

The description of the Sorcerer-Kings themselves is part of the problem. A bit more "wizard from Thundarr" vibe would certainly help, I think. There is a transhuman aspect to what the what the Sorcerer-Kings are after, so I feel like they should, at least in some cases, feel like they are moving away from human a bit. maybe?

So from this perspective, I plan to take a look at the city-states in upcoming posts.

DC, August 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 May 22, 1980.

Action Comics #510: Again Bates and Swan deliver a story where at least it's hard to predict where they might be going. Luthor gives up on an opportunity to assassinate his foe for the sake of the mysterious woman Superman just rescued. He appears to have gone straight due to his new found infatuation with this woman--well, except for kidnapping her then performing supposedly life-saving surgery without her consent. That stuff she doesn't appear to mind. Where is Bates going with all this? We must wait until next issue.

Adventure Comics #474: House ads promise Aquaman is coming next issue. Maybe that will shake things up. Starman takes on some robots with a roller ball in place of feet which have a goofy charm. Ditko also gives us some good retro sci-fi aliens and costumes. Plastic Man has the criminal mastermind Archie Type putting a hit out on our hero. A bunch of pun-named assassins come after him. It's sort of fun. I might like this better if it was in a collection of its own, so I could get into its comedic vibe.

Brave & the Bold #165: Man-Bat and his wife are desperate parents trying to get ahold of an experimental South American drug that may treat their daughter's potentially fatal insomnia. Batman intervenes because the drug is being smuggled in by an unscrupulous doctor and may be tainted with botulism. Pasko has Batman initially unwilling to share information and come on heavy-handed to contrive a fight between him and Man-Bat. The issue ends with Man-Bat swearing vengeance against Batman should his daughter die, which is a pretty unusual ending for a team-up book, I feel like.

Detective Comics #493: Burkett and Newton bring us a Batman/Riddler story that seems to have been sponsored by the Houston Bureau of Tourism. Batman lands at Hobby to team up with the Vigilante's nephew, the Swashbuckler (who I'm guessing didn't have many appearances), then he gets to visit Astroworld. In the normally nonsuper-powered-lead-character Tales of Gotham feature, Red Tornado follows an elderly black lady around and gets a taste of life in a poor and stereotypical part of Gotham. Harris and Nicholas bring us their least interesting Robin story yet, but at least we find out who the guy is who has been following Dick Grayson. Wein and Giordano give us a really 70s tale of the Human Target and criminal truckers. Burkett and Delbo continue with Batgirl dealing with the fallout of a couple of issues back. Continuity!

Green Lantern #131: Barr and Staton have Evil Star out to destroy the sun after first making it's light more yellow to thwart GL. Not a bad story, but the second part of the trial of Arkkis Chummuck in the back up is still the most interesting part of the issue to me.

House of Mystery #283: The cover has nothing to do with this issue's contents. The first story by Mayer and Tanghal is really predictable, but satisfying as a life-long swindler and double-crosser believes he's made it into heaven, only to find he's been deceived this time. The second story by Kashdan and Nino might be a parable about not being prejudiced against other cultures, or it could be read as the admonition: if wives would only tell husbands they were trying to save their lives with unorthodox, folk medicine, needless deaths of legitimately suspicious friends could be avoided.

Legion of Super-Heroes #266: Conway and Janes have Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel accidentally unleashing an evil genie. For some reason, Conway thought this plot deserved a two-parter.

New Adventures of Superboy #8: The cover shows Ma Kent at Clark's funeral slapping Superboy--and to my surprise the scene actually occurs in the issue. Bates delivers another mildly intriguing "puzzle" plot as Ma and Pa Kent mysteriously forget Clark is Superboy, leading Superboy to fake Clark's death. To be continued, naturally.

Sgt. Rock #343: The main story could almost be a comedy, though Kanigher and Redondo play it straight. Rock gets a concussion and is out of his head, just as Easy is supposed to be getting a visit from a Colonel who is all about spit and polish. The backup story "Crabs," seems like it scuttled in from a horror comic. Steve Bissette writes and draws this ambiguous tale about an island overrun by the titular creatures and the madness of a G.I. that seems catalyzed by their presence.

Super Friends #35: Romeo Tanghal fills in for Fradon on story involving a circus and imposter heroes. Very kid friendly.

Unexpected #201: The first story here by Skyrenes/Lillian and Heck is a bit Hammer Horror-ish and deals with curse on a haughty noblewoman and dated Romani stereotypes. The second story by Wessler with interesting art by Jim Craig, involves a funhouse where a Hall of Mirrors unleashes evil doppelgangers of people. It's a lot of set-up for little payoff, and I don't understand what happens in the ending.

Unknown Soldier #242: Haney and Ayers have the Soldier sent to stop a secret German plan to cripple Russia. The problem is, the Soviet spy only has half of the plans. The rest are in the hands of the mysterious Russian partisan, the Anvil. It turns out the Anvil is a woman, and the Soviet spy is a double agent. Awesome Kubert cover, but mediocre story.

Untold Legend of Batman #2: The definitive Bronze Age origin of Batman continues courtesy of Wein and Aparo. This time, the focus gets broadened to the supporting cast, giving short origins of Robin, Alfred, the Joker and Two-Face.

Warlord #36: Read more about it here. 

Weird Western Tales #70: This is the final issue of the title's 59 issue run. It continues the story from last issue with Scalphunter escaping the sadistic sargeant (and taking the woman disguised as a Union soldier with him). Pursued by some of the troops, they make a stand in an ice house, where their cunning gives them the upper hand. Scalphunter rides off into the sunset.

The Dials of Dark Sun

While I haven't heard its creators name specific works, it seems clear that the Dark Sun setting draws inspiration from Planetary Romance, Sword & Sorcery, and Post-Apocalyptic media. Paying attention to the features of these (sub)genres, one could "dial" up or down their presence in the game to tailor the setting to a specific experience, without needing to eliminate any one of components entirely.

In considering this, I realized that those three genres actually wind up having quite a bit in common. I've thought of some specific elements that 2 out of the 3 share. (I'll be ignoring similarities between Planetary Romance and S&S, because they are likely genetically related genres.) Before I present my lists, a comment about "post-apocalyptic" in regards to Dark Sun. I suspect DS is mostly inspired by Mad Max and related 80s post-apocalyptic films (The degree to which these films share some aesthetics with barbarian films in the same era in the wake of Milius's Conan, I'm also not going to get into.) I don't think DS draws much from say post-apocalyptic literature of earlier decades or even post-apocalyptic films of the 70s. The similarities I'm going to point out are with this particular Mad Max branch of the genre.

Anyway, here's what I thought of:

Planetary Romance and Post-Apoc

• Lots of wilderness, most often desert 
• Isolated, weird communities
• A mishmash of technology in use
• Lost technology

S&S and Post-Apoc

• Outsider, loner, (badass) heroes
• savagery vs. civilization
• violence
• grimness

There are major differences, of course, but it was surprising to me how well they mesh. I think it would be relatively easy to turn up the Planetary Romance by having the city-states of the Tablelands be more like the Red Martian cities of Barsoom, and the technology level of the pre-apocalypse world be higher, without really losing the post-apocalyptic struggle for survival. Alternatively, you could dial down the survival themes are play up the heroic stature of the protagonists without losing any of the other Dark Sun trappings.

There is a fourth dial and that's Dungeons & Dragons. It's probably the reason there is both magic and psionics and certainly the reason there are elves, dwarves, and halflings, different from standard as they are. The need to be marketed as a D&D campaign is probably the source of much of the dissonance in the setting, but on the other hand, a D&D setting is what it is. 

Wednesday Comics

My continued dive month by month into DC Comics of the early 80s will be delayed owing to the holiday. If you're new to the feature though, you might want to step back and take a look at the offerings with a cover date of January 1980.

Images Under A Dying Sun

 Thinking about doing something with this old post condensing my ideas about Dark Sun. Here are some images that get me in the right frame of mind. No actual Dark Sun art here, though of course a lot of that is pretty inspirational.

Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1980 (part 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of May 8, 1980.

Batman #326: Wein and Novick have Batman facing a criminal he knows should be in Arkham. Gordon calls the head of the facility who assures him it's all okay, but the guy's all hidden in shadow so I'm suspicious, but Gordon just takes his word for it. It turns out it's Professor Milo with another nefarious scheme. Wein evidently likes Milo, as he brought him back in the 70s after an absence of over a decade, and brings him back again here.

DC Comics Presents #24: This is my favorite issue of this title since I've been doing this review. The basic plot is, admittedly, a little silly, but it's solidly Bronze Age. A scientist somehow hooked his heart device up to the Earth, hoping it would stabilize his arrhythmia, but instead it works the other way and causes earthquakes. Deadman is sent by Rama Krishna to get involved with this because he's being all mopey. No one in this issue sees or hears, him but he does some humorous cheerleading from Superman who is uncharacteristically hard-ass and no nonsense here. Garcia-Lopez is always great on Superman or Deadman.

Flash #288: Flash is still dealing with the returned Dr. Alchemy, who isn't who he expects. It turns out he's some sort of astrological twin, with a weird sort of relationship with the Desmond Flash has known so that they influence each other. Yeah, I don't get it either. Anyway, the original Desmond goes into action on the last panel--but for good or evil?

Ghosts #91: The thing that hurts this title compared to DC's other horror books is that the plots have a much more rigid formula: malefactor kills someone, then the murdered person's ghost somehow causes the malefactor's death. The Kashdan/Rubeny story tries a novel riff on the formula where the ghost makes it into a glassblower's glass. Haney/Landgraf have a ghost haunting a wealthy family over generations, with the twist being that the evil-doer doesn't know he's a member of the family, and the murder he committed wasn't the murder of the ghost. Nice effort, but they still feel straight-jacketed.

G.I. Combat #221: I've mentioned before that I'm not terribly fond of the Haunted Tank feature and none of the stories here change my mind, though Kanigher and Glanzman get points for sheer weirdness in "Wars Never Change" by having Stonewall Jackson's ghost mix it up with Attila the Hun's ghost--and suggesting these two are old enemies! In "Falling Star" they have a 4-F Hollywood star desperate to prove himself riding to the rescue of the Haunted Tank crew on horseback, and dying of a heart attack in a twist I didn't expect, I must admit. In other stories, a private saving his unit thanks to his adopting a stray cat, and POW gets into the ring with a sadistic German commandant.

Jonah Hex #39: Fleisher must have seen Red Sun, because we get Hex befriending a samurai looking for his kidnapped daughter (who has Chinese name rather than a Japanese one for some reason). It ends in characteristic downer Hex fashion with Hex forced to serve as second for the samurai's seppuku. The art here is by Hex co-creator Tony DeZuniga.

Justice League of America #181: Conway and Dillin  carry on the tradition of bowmen being pains in the ass in superhero teams. Green Arrow narrates this tale that starts with him complaining that the Justice League is out of touch with the "little guy" or something, then saving the day when Star Tsar returns. Notably Batman is absent, and it's sort of Batman-type "detective work" that allows Green Arrow to succeed.

Secrets of Haunted House #27: A lackluster issue with a story by Kelly with stiff Nicholas/Colletta art about a street gang terrorizing the New York subway being manipulated by a witch who wants to get back in Satan's good graces. The second story by Seeger and Redondo has a nice title ("Cold as Isis") but is a muddled tale of a mummies, reincarnation, an Egyptian god, and a swimsuit model.

Superman #350: In typical Superman fashion of this era, there is a lot going on here. Conway has Clark and Lana attending a college reunion where a number of their classmates just disappear during a boring speech by a professor. The professor's named Lemuel B. Tolkein, for no particular reason. When an office building disappears too, it turns out it all has to do with side-effects of the Prof's experiment that has turned the subconsciouses of the disappeared students into some sort of psychic monster. 

Weird War Tales #90: This one is pretty good. The first story by Haney and Cruz has a German U-boat transporting a set of coffins to South America after the fall of Berlin. The only problem is his crew keeps dying, and Hitler, occupying one of the coffins, seems very much alive! A nice riff on the Demeter parts of Dracula with some Haney twists. The second story by Kashdan and Carrillo has the French colonial army facing an army of ants in the Congo.

Wonder Woman #270: So Conway and Delbo have Hippolyte praying to Aphrodite to make Diana forget Steve Trevor and the tragedy of his death, which the goddess does. There's a fight with another elemental monster, then some Bermuda Triangle stuff, and a new Steve Trevor crashes a jet in the ocean for Diana to save. Conway's whole goal here appears to have been a reset of the Wonder Woman status quo before Trevor's death, and he's taken the long way around to do it.

World's Finest #264: I have questions about the lead Batman/Superman story by O'Neil and Buckler. Why is the Clayface of this story called "Clayface I" when he is Clayface II by Who's Who standards? Is it a mistake or is O'Neil counting him as the first Earth-1 Clayface? And since when can Clayface replicate Kryptonite? Anyway, not a bad story despite my questions. The Green Arrow story by Haney and von Eoden has Queen writing a utterly unsourced column accusing a new casino of being mobbed up (which he knew because of illegal surveillance). Then as Green Arrow, he takes down the transgender gangster running the joint. The Hawkman story by DeMatteis and Landgraf has a very Marvel vibe, to me, but B-grade Marvel, at best. Rozakis and Delbo have Dr. Light taking on Aquaman, with all the lack of thrills that implies. Bridwell and Newton bring the charm along with the Monster Society of Evil in the Marvel Family tale.

Army of the Dead and "The Job Gone Wrong" Adventure

I watched Army of the Dead on Netflix this weekend and thought it was pretty enjoyable. Briefly, it's the story of an eclectic group hired to get $200 million in cash out of a Vegas casino vault. The catch being Las Vegas is walled off after having been overrun by zombies, and the government plans to destroy the city with a tactical nuclear weapon in just a few days.

As a combination of a heist film and a zombie movie, it's heist aspect is probably most compelling. There is only mild inventiveness in its zombie aspects, consisting mostly of making that like the "vampires" in I Am Legend--and I don't mean "bad CGI" but instead fast, strong, and able to work in a group. As a heist film, it is less a caper film like Ocean's 11 or Kelly's Heroes, and more a "job goes wrong" film like Reservoir Dogs or Dead Presidents. In fact, I'm fairly certain it's not the first horror film or thriller with larcenous job and a group of competent professionals at its center.

Anyway, I think this sort of set up would make a good roleplaying game adventure, at least for a con game or one shot. A con game or one shot, because there's a very good chance that all the characters (or most) aren't going to make it out a live, so why plan for a future unlikely to happen?

In a con game, you could seed the pregens with hidden motivations that would goad them into derailing the mission, though I suppose you could let the player's make up the characters and just have a random secret motive table.

I think it could be a lot of fun with the right group.