Every Devil is a Cop

"So sooner or later, everybody's working for the Man."

- Go (1998)

Hell was born when border Archons of the Machine became convinced that It's algorithms would never conquer Chaos. Stronger measures were needed. These warriors cut a path into Chaos and fixed it with iron, stone and fire, and created Hell.

Though Hell's propaganda won't admit it (devil's have been rendered back to Lermure-hood for saying it), the War on Chaos has not gone well over the aeons. The Infernal Marches once safely reached to the Black Iron Prison of Carceri. Chaos not only has refused to be subdued, but it has been able to turn formerly loyal soldiers. Does anyone in Hell's hierarchy trust the Yugoloths or Gehreleths? No, they've both been compromised and will be the next targets as soon as the demon threat is ended.

If there's one bright spot it's the Material Plane. Diabolic agents have been able to turn an unexpected action by Chaos into a key recruiting tool. The soul-stuff of material beings may be relatively modest in absolute magnitude, but every transgressor that can be brought over and gotten under contract is added to the Infernal warchest.

Minor devils and trusted agents work to uncover (one might even say tempt) wayward, souls all in the name of recruiting--coercing--them as assets. Let the priggish supplicants of the Mountain fret about "right." There is no right in a fallen cosmos, outside the Law. And right now, the Law needs strength more than mercy.

And the fires of Hell are not eternal for those see their error. With toil and penance the most Chaos-ridden soul can become a devil, a stalwart soldier in the armies of a new order for the all things. Is that not mercy? 

Not all beings turned by infernal influence are small. Big fish are particularly prized, those with influence over other souls. Even Gods and their cults have been suborned to the diabolic agenda. Of course, there are also devils posing as gods to the unsuspecting people of material worlds.

Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1981 (wk 2 pt 1)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around November 25, 1980.

Action Comics #516: I like the cover on this one. Wolfman's Vandal Savage story continues with Superman out for vengeance against the immortal. Luthor quickly spills it that Savage is traveling through time. He even gives Supes a device to detect where Savage is. Everywhere Superman pursues the dictator, though, something goes awry and their is a big explosion. Olsen and White smell a rat. They get Luthor to tell them more, which includes the origin of Vandal Savage and that Superman's actions in the past now are actually what brings Savage to power. It seems their are time-changing bombs Superman is inadvertently setting off. Luthor sends Olsen back in time to stop all this--which is just another part of his master plan. He's going to see to it that Savage, Superman, and Olsen die in one big explosion, leaving him to be ruler of the world. Back in the Age of Dinosaurs Savage gloats he's about to be struck by a fireball from space like the one that made him immortal, and then his victory will be complete. Superman has finally caught on and doesn't destroy the fireball. Savage's victory is foiled (and Luthor's too). Jimmy and Superman return to a restore timeline where Lois is still alive. 

The Atom backup story by Rozakis and Saviuk is pretty forgettable. Chronos is committing crimes but being really good about not leaving clues. Perhaps too good. Chronos does not come off as particularly impressive either in the story or in Saviuk's depiction of him.

Brave & the Bold #171: Conway and Garcia-Lopez bring us a really off-beat crossover, which well, only happens in Batman's mind, I guess? Bruce Wayne wins an auction for a jewel box once owned by Martha Jennings, the "Florence Nightingale of the Civil War." While Bruce is admiring his $10,000 box he confides in Alfred he had a crush on Jennings when he was a schoolboy, which really tells us that Bruce was a nerdy kid. (Or maybe not, as Garcia-Lopez depicts her as pretty attractive, but I digress.) He finds a secret compartment with a note with the bat symbol on it! As one does in these situations, he goes to see an old professor from college who has a "time hypnosis" technique. Under hypnosis, Bruce goes back in time to see what's up. There, he meets Jennings and Scalphunter, and the two heroes help Jennings get supplies through Confederate lines. Bruce really spends a lot of time wondering what makes that enigmatic Scalphunter tick. But did he ever really meet Scalphunter? And what is time hypnosis? Conway is following in Haney's time-honored "just go with it" writing style.

Nemesis is back in the backup by Burkett and Spiegle. This time there's casino action, and Nemesis actually gets shot, which is a big deal in a way that I suppose is realistic but seems odd for comic book action heroes.

Detective Comics #499: Conway and Newton/Adkins open with Blockbuster contemplating killing Batman, who lies unconscious in a mine in West Virginia, but the corrupt union leader's goons set off in explosion to cause a collapse before Blockbuster can act. In the aftermath, with Batman struggling to help the the crusading reformer, Macon, the giant has befriend, Blockbuster decides to ally with him for now. They all manage to escape the cave, then Batman and Blockbuster go after the badguys who have kidnapped Macon's daughter. In the end, justice is done, and Batman decides to let Blockbuster stay "dead" and remain here.

In the backup, we reach the end of the "Barbara Gordon, Murderer" storyline. Batgirl has to escape from a watery death-trap and rescue Doreen the secretary who helped frame her--all before Barbara is found in contempt for not showing up to her own hearing. In the end, Batgirl gets there in time to reveal the true murderer. The wrap up seems a little bit to quick for how long this drug out--and maybe it is. It seems like from previous issues there was a conspiracy against Barbara (though I'd have to look back).

Green Lantern #137: The Wolfman/Staton tale of GL visiting the future continues. I apparently missed a plot point last issue by not carefully reading one panel: Jordan was drawn to one point in the future but instead wound up in a different point (apparently 1000 years earlier, or something) where he Space Ranger. So the Gordanians attack Earth twice. Anyway, the story opens with GL and Space Ranger in the hands of the enemy who are getting ready to throw cables around the Earth and drag it to Vega so the Citadel can auction it off. Space Ranger breaks them free, but Jordan is still without his memory, so he doesn't know how to use his ring and is useless in the fight. Space Ranger's girlfriend, Myra Mason, shows up to lend a hand, but once she is injured the battle turns against them. At that moment, GL is yanked back to the 58th Century. Apparently he's met these people before as Iona is in love with him from meeting previously (that would be in Green Lantern #51, but the issue has no footnotes anywhere to tell you that). They manage to restore his memory, and GL defeats the Gordanians in this time, then wipes Iona's memory of him so she'll stop pining. He jumps back to help Space Ranger before returning to his on time.

The backup is another Adam Strange story by Laurie Sutton, joined now by Infantino on art. It's an improvement. This is mostly an Alanna solo story, though Adam shows up at the end (courtesy of the zeta beam) to rescue her from bird-riding tribesmen with blowguns. It turns out Sardoth had sent her somewhere to distract her until he and Adam could complete a surprise (big goof on that one, Dad. You almost killed her!) Anyway, a double zeta beam is ready to take her with Adam for a trip to Earth.

House of Mystery #289: "Brother Bob's Home for Wayward Boys and Girls" by DeMatteis and Rubeny is the opener. It's starts off with the familiar sort of sanctimonious disciplinarian who runs up against a new resident, Joshua, who seems able to thwart him and inspire the other kids to petty rebellion. Bob is convinced Joshua is Satan, but in the end Joshua reveals he works for the other Guy--whose vengeance is also terrible! Kashdan and Zamore follow with an odd tale (told in a different style, it could almost be a Ligotti yarn) of two thieves wanting to steal a treasure from cultists in a cave. In order to win it, they impersonate Kronus, the god of the cult, and Braxus he's opponent in myth. The Kronus imitator kills his companion, seemingly possessed by an unnatural rage. He ascends the throne to claim his treasure, but finds the cult won't let him leave, and if he removes his costume, they'll kill him. He hears the dark laughter of Kronus ringing in his years. DeMatteis returns with Amongo for a story of a reclusive "hippie" musician trying to make a comeback, but when taunted by the crowd looking for something newer (they're all over the place wanting Alice (Cooper), disco, and the Village People--harder not to see DeMatteis making some comment on post-60s music), he lets his vampiric hunger take over and kills them. He flies off into the dawn as a bat and dies, leaving the crowd awed by the theatrics and the promoter wanting to repeat the show tomorrow night.

Everyone Comes to Sigil

I've said before that Sigil is perhaps the most interesting thing about Planescape, and it doesn't really rely on the Great Wheel for the things about it that are interesting. For most people, who seem the dislike the Great Wheel, that may be a design feature. I happen to like the Great Wheel (As a concept. I can't say I'm particularly excited by a lot of the execution. On the other hand, I also feel like a lot of the "what do you do with this?" response to it shows a willful lack of creativity. That's perhaps a topic for another post.) so I think a setting meant to make the classic planes of D&D a setting, but instead makes a setting that can mostly ignore them, has some flaws in execution.

We are told gods can't enter Sigil. This is very convenient, because it provides a base of operations very much like the Prime Material Plane (where gods can go, but don't much) for the PCs to run around in. It also raises a lot of metaphysical questions, which sure, might have interesting answers, but I feel like it would be just as interesting--maybe more--not to keep the gods out. Sigil is the center of a plane surrounded by all these hostile forces. It's a Neutral Zone, a DMZ, a Free City with no allegiance to any of those eternally warring philosophies. 

It would be a good place for the gods to come together to make treaties and talk, but also maybe a good place for them to vacation and let their hair down. What happens in Sigil, stays in Sigil. I'm thinking it should be a bit like the bathhouse in Spirited Away, a bit like Cold War Berlin, Throne from Kill Six Billion Demons, and Yu-Shan from Exalted. (Yu-Shan being the capital of Heaven has more bureaucracy than Sigil would have, certainly, but I mean in terms of a place crawling with spiritual powes minor and major.)

I think this would make Sigil more colorful perhaps, as part of the thing the PCs must navigate is avoiding offending visiting dignitaries. Of course, they have more room to be daring and burn the gods in some scheme or confidence game in Sigil, as the gods are constrained in what they can do within the city. Even still, it would be a risky play, but perhaps a tempting one. It would also supply a ready supply of quest-givers or dubious patrons.

The Petrified Polyhedron Forest

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e session last Sunday saw the party continuing their exploration of the strange, underground tunnels as they searched for the Cyan Sorceress. They had no luck in that regard, but they encountered a number of weird things. Waylon took a bracer off an alien skeleton that allowed the wearer to reach into a pocket dimension. They discovered a room where the walls were covered in green filaments, though they couldn't discern its purpose. Then there was the room where the emanations of a crystal seemed to have frozen a number of people (both aliens and recognizable folk) in time. 

The group freed a couple of the humans, who were priests of the oracular temple above and had been frozen for hundreds of years. The party hoped the priests might be able to shed some light on everything that was going on, but no such luck. They pointed the confused priests in the direction of the surface and went on.

The last room they came to had a column of light that they figured out acted as some sort of teleportation beam. They all used it and came out in a vast, underground cavern, full of a petrified forest of sorts--or perhaps a garden of standing stones might be more accurate. Except the stones are all "natural" and in various geometric shapes. They come in sizes from merely imposing to positively gigantic. And the party discovered that some of them move.

In fact, the party figured out how to nudge who of these rolling stones in a forward (deeper into the forest) direction, and they followed in its wake to the central hill.

Talislanta: Werewood

My work on a Talislanta adaptation for the Dying Earth rpg, made me think it was worth reviving my dormant series of posts from 2020 touring Talislanta through editions. Still, in the Western Lands, we come to Werewood. 

"Look yonder to Were Wood and its darkling oaks!"

- Jack Vance, Rhialto the Marvellous

The Chronicles tells us that Werewood is a "dark and tangled forest region" north of Zandu. It's described in forbidding terms. Enforcing this impression, Tamerlin tells us of its most baleful inhabitants: the Werebeast, which combine the "worst attributes of men, apes, and tundra beasts" (the Naturalists Guide says "Ur, beastman, and lycanthromorph") and the Banes. Banes are vampiric creatures with the power to mimic voices of any sort. They were inspired by Vance's deodands with their skin as "black as polished obsidian" and their large fangs and eyes that "glow like embers." Then there are the mandragores, plant things that stand immobile during the day, but move around at night to hunt prey.

Not everything in Werewood is deadly, however. There are the Weirdlings or Wish-Gnomes, who according to legend must give over their underground treasure if caught or grant their captor a wish. There are also the Dhuna, the human inhabitants of the forest. The Dhuna were persecuted for witchcraft in ages past and were forced to flee into the forest. They are still believed to have magical powers, particularly the women who can "capture a man's heart with but a single kiss." The Handbook adds, under the Dhuna Witchwoman/Warlock archetype listing, that they are "strange and mysterious by nature" and are "believed to engage in sacrificial rituals."

A Naturalist's Guide expands a little on the lore of the creatures. In fashion reminiscent of Dying Earth monsters, it says banes are thought to be a bizarre hybrid of "darkling, night demon, the extinct babbling howler, and perhaps even Ariane." Their fangs, claws, and ocular organs are sought by alchemists and thaumaturges. The mandragore are valuable because they speak the secret language of plants and trees.

The second edition expands a bit more upon the region. It adds locations with the forest, including the Valley of Forgetfulness, where a mist from the river steals memory, and the creatures known as gnorls, who get player character archetypes. The gnorls are an underground dwelling race, who practice a divination art called "rhabdomancy" (rhabdos rod, wand). They are speculated to be related to the Weirdlings.

This is pretty much the Werewood of later editions. The Dhuna get a bit more fleshed out: we are told they are persecuted for their "pagan beliefs" (presumably meaning non-Orthodoxist), and that they live in "close-knit clans or covens." They also have "liberal views toward matrimony," but the descriptions suggest more that they practice polygamy.

Werewood is the sort of dark, fairy wood of Talislanta. It has elements that recall Tolkien's Mirkwood, and Vance's Tantrevalles in his Lyonesse trilogy, but those resemblances may just be that they are drawing from the same inspirations. The Dhuna are sort of compositions of various witch tropes, including maybe some neo-pagan witches flavor. They're a good counterpoint to the Rennfaire types of Silvanus.

Given the potential fairytale scariness of Werewood, I feel like the Dhuna as insular, isolated people either fighting against (or sometimes embracing) that darkness ought to be played up. It seems like protecting their covens against banes, werebeasts, and mandragores ought to be a bigger concern than Orthodoxist oppression. The canon is somewhat inconsistent regarding the eldritch danger of the forest. The proliferation of inhabitants has added to that, but I'm in favor of gaining a bit of that back.

Jack Shear has some interesting thoughts on Talislanta and the Gothic that would be interesting here.

Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1981 (wk 1 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around November 13, 1980.

G.I. Combat #226: This story has a couple of decent stories. The Kanigher/le Rose "The 6-Minute War" chronicles the harrowing descent and ultimate death in battle of a paratrooper, 6 minutes after his first drop. Wessler and Talaoc tell the story of an American medic who treats the wounds of 3 German soldiers, then takes them captive. When they try to kill him with a grenade, he bats it back at them with his rifle butt and blows them up! O.S.S. by Regan and Carillo continues to be hardcore and grim. A German working for Control volunteers to assassinate Dr. Mencke who killed his wife and child in Auschitz. He purposely gets captured and sent to the camp where he assaults a SS officer and is shot and killed. Mencke catches sight of his extensive tattoos and takes him to his lab to remove his skin for a nice lampshade. The time bomb that started up when his heart stopped beating explodes and kills Mencke during the procedure. While we're on the note of grimness, Wessler and Vicatan present the tale of a deserting GI being chased by his sergeant. His sergeant saves him from some Japanese, then he saves the Sergeant from quicksand when he could have gotten away. Regretfully, the Sergeant takes the deserter back to be shot by firing squad.

The first of the two Haunted Tank yarns also deals with a runaway tank of deserters. These guys have the decency to die in battle after seeing their error of their ways, though. The second story has the Tank and its crew playing a pivotal role in capturing the bridge at Remagen in March of 1945.

Justice League of America #188: Zatanna's 80s costume designed by Perez has it's co-first appear with New Teen Titans #3 in this issue. Here it is drawn by Heck/McLaughlin. Even though they came out at the same time, I guess this issue is technically the first appearance, since it shows Zatanna debuting it for her teammates. Or one of her teammates; Conway has the Flash is trying to put the moves on Zatanna, and she's conflicted about workplace romance and being the rebound girl, but she's kind of reciprocating. A villain from the Creeper series, Proteus, Man of 1000 Faces, has been defeating the JLA one by one and making them think they are average joes. Zatanna's costume change cues the Flash into the fact something is going on. His suspicions aren't strong enough, though, and he too is replaced, but their are signs the other heroes are coming to the rescue. Proteus wanting JLA duplicates to commit jewel theft hardly seems to be aiming high with all that power.

New Teen Titans #4: I continue to be impressed (or exhausted) by how much Wolfman and Perez put in these issues. We get a little bit more of Raven's backstory here. We find out that she first approached the JLA about helping her against Trigon, but they would because they didn't believe her. They instead want to fight these three wizards she thought were doing the right thing, I guess? Maybe I didn't read it close enough, but I'm a bit confused. Anyway, the Titans fight the JLA not once, but twice. Once because they were give hypnotic suggestions by Psimon, the next time because Raven convinced them they should. In the end, the JLA reveals how much Raven has been manipulating them (for good reasons, she assures them) and now they aren't helping her. The fights with the JLA were well done, and with the backgrounds Perez draws in this magical realm, it really has a "warming up for Crisis" vibe to it.

Secrets of Haunted House #33: "In the Attic Dwells Dark Seth" by Kashdan and Serpe may not be the the best horror story I've read since I started this, but it really feels like the answer to "just what are these horror comics like?" Wealthy and kind of creepy looking Stanley is bringing his new bride (a gold-digger as her thoughts reveal) home to meet the creepy family. Turns out the couple has a baby on the way, and Stanley says the "Professor" expects a perfect baby. His bride doesn't know who the Professor is but when older brother Seth starts howling upstairs she forgets all about that. She's told to leave Seth be and not to disturb him. Naturally, she goes and unlocks the door during the night and Seth, looking like some sort of winged gargoyle, chases her down the hall, until Dad and Mom send him to his room. They explain to their shocked daughter-in-law that they are Satanists. They were supposed to get Satan's perfect child, but instead got this demonic mutation. They didn't want to sacrifice the kid, so they keep him locked up. Turns out Satan kept at it, though, and her husband is the son Satan always wanted! As her sanity flees, the cringing bride hears how she's going to bear the continuations of the line. 

Wessler and Bingham follow that up with a confusing yarn about a guy the cops think killed his 4 previous wives, but they can't prove it. There fears seem founded, because he clearly seems to be planning to kill his new one. The cops are trying to find a way to stop him, but he's too slick. Until, that is, his new wife brains him with a hammer, killing him like she did his other wives. Kashdan and Wade then present a pointless yarn about a spy sneaking into a Baron's castle and getting vampirized. Finally, Rozakis and Spiegle are back with a Mister E story involving a wealthy man who is being blackmailed by his chauffeur who has a cassette tape of a voodoo ceremony that appears to resurrect the dead. He's threatening to use it to bring the man's brother back to life and get him arrested for insurance fraud (since he's brother's insurance policy was the source of his fortune). Mister E exposes the blackmailers as frauds, and scares them by impersonating a zombie, sending them falling from cliff.

Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #3: The Legion origins continue, wrapped in the RJ Brande is dying story. We learn that Bouncing Boys costume is not in fact a costume, but the regular clothes he was wearing when he got his powers. Anyway, Saturn Girl spills the beans, revealing that the reason for reviewing the Legion's origins is that one of them is Brande's kid.

Superman #355: "Battle of the Super-Hyper Powers!" by Bates/Swan pits Superman against that Sean Connery lookalike, Vartox. Clark Kent and his tv co-workers are skiing up at Mammoth Mountain, but then Vartox shows up. He came to let Lana know their love can never be because he found a planet that needs a champion, so that takes up pretty much all his time. But all is not as it seems! Vartox believes the people of his new world are playing games with him. They've been manufacturing world-threatening dangers to keep him busy. Superman goes to the world pretending to be a space outlaw, so Vartox can apprehend him and they can work to discover what's going on. Meanwhile, the Tynolans summon dread Noxumbra and plan for Vartox to be a sacrificial hero!

The backup by Newman and Deblo is the first of the "Fabulous World of Krypton" features. It's the story of an ancient member of the Nor family who enlisted the help of aliens in securing leadership of his people, but then led the rebellion when the aliens proved to be untrustworthy. While in exile, he also destroyed a space cloud that threatened Krypton.

World's Finest Comics #267: Burkett and Buckler have Batman and Superman teaming up with the Challengers of the Unknown.  It's a decent team-up yarn with everyone getting something to do as they go after terrorist with the power to effect gravity. Haney/von Eeden switch it up from Green Arrow to give his lady friend a chance to shine. Black Canary saves a Black woman police officer from a mob convinced she killed a man in cold blood. Canary tries to prove the cop's innocence, but not before the officer is kidnapped and put on trial by The Graffiti Gang. With a blind man as her star witness, Canary reveals that the real killer was one of the gang members who was dealing drugs. This story is almost "70s socially relevant" and seems very naïve in 2021, but von Eeden's art is great in it.

The Red Tornado story be DeMatteis and Delbo has RT kidnapped by a macrocephalic T.O. Morrow who has been killing himself with his super-advanced brain and needs a new body. He transfers his mind into RT and then precedes to take over the android's life. The Rozakis/Saviuk Hawkman story has the insectoids that were menacing last issue attacking. At the end, the Hawks prepare to face off with Lord Insectus! Birdwell and Newton get to the culmination of their Monster Society of Evil story with the villains staging an all-out assault on the Rock of Eternity. Captain Marvel calls in Mary Captain Marvel Jr. and the Lieutenant Marvels for the battle. The individual takedowns are clever. This is my favorite story of the issue.

Weird War Tales #96: The cover warns the reader that you "might hate" the cover story by DeMatteis and Spiegle, suggesting perhaps than stories about Vietnam were still considered "edgey" in comics of this era. And this one kind of is, at least for kids. It's 1967, and Marty Voight, hippie, is drafted. He's injured when a buddy is blown up by a mine, and he becomes convinced that some energy in the Viet Cong device got into him and is mutating him. He's also using heroin, and starts using more to deal with the pain in his shoulders. His response to being forced to participate in atrocities and seeing friends die is more heroin. He hallucinates his friends back home and the girlfriend that left him as he stumbles through the streets of Saigon. Finally, the mutation is complete and he sprouts wings, at least in his mind. He jumps from a helicopter, to his death. "It was the drugs," one soldier opines, but another doesn't seem so sure it was only the drugs. I think this may be the strongest story since I've been reading this title.

The rest is a let down Kasdan and Rubeny deliver a short yarn about a tulip field in Holland that subsumes German and American combatants to keep things peaceful. Kashdan and Henson reveal the futuristic late 1990s where the ultimate weapon has been developed, but it will inadvertently destroy the entire solar system, so a soldier colludes with an alien to cripple it.  The final story isn't particularly a Weird War Tale, but Kanigher and Vicatan have a racist U.S. soldier getting a supernatural comeuppance after abusing the locals in 1899 in China.

Wonder Woman #277: Staking out the funeral of Priscilla Rich (Cheetah I) Wonder Woman has her first run in with a Kobra goon. Conway really doesn't portray Wonder Woman as having super-strength most of the time--or at least only minor super-strength. It turns out Kobra has infiltrated the military and draws her into a trap at Carlsbad Caverns. Meanwhile, the plans for the "ultimate dirty bomb," Cobalt 93, have been stolen. Wonder Woman finds them in the caverns in the hands of Kobra. 

The backup story by Levitz and Staton brings the Huntress/Power Girl story to a close. The DA (who now knows Huntress' identity) reveals the Thinkers plot. Power Girl is briefly in the Thinker's control, but our heroes rally, and the Thinker's helmet gets smashed.

The Affairs of Wizards

What is a D&D character to do after they've surpassed all those domain building levels? Epic level campaigns where the monsters are just have more hit points? Walk a path of apotheosis like some out of Mentzer's Masters Rules set?

Both of those are good, but they could also hang out in luxury, go to parties on exotic demiplane, try to one-up their fellow epic levels at every turn. In other words, they could act like the Arch-Magicians in the Rhialto the Marvellous stories by Jack Vance.

I feel like the hero/quasi-deities of Greyhawk are ripe for this treatment (see Mordenkainen's magical prep of what must be an epic sandwich in the image above), but Elminster seems like this sort of guy as well. I don't mean to suggest they would never go on something resembling a traditional adventure (Vance's "Morreion" is good inspiration, here.), but the main challenge for these demigods is out doing other beings of power. Sure you could kill Asmodeus, but wouldn't it be more civilized and rewarding to humiliate him in front of his infernal peers?