The Toymaker

One of the most enigmatic figures of the Anadem and Old Earth is the Toymaker. Hailed as a genius, albeit an eccentric one, his smaller creations are sought by wealthy collectors and his larger recreational devices, benevolently gifted to communities are sources of civic pride. Each of these is marked with a modest, but never-tarnishing brass legend proclaiming it "A Gift of the Toymaker."

A list of known works of the Toymaker would run too long, but I will remind you of but a few you have likely heard of: The Clockwork Courtesan of Yejem, the Arcade Spatterlight in the Pleasure Garden of Oressund Major, the Leaping Lepidopterists in the possession of the Pajandrum of Gloorb, and of course the Merry-go-Round Tower of Ooth-Ithrain,

The Toymaker's most commonly encountered creation are the Wind-Up Gnomes. Most serve their generally wealthy owners as servants, but a few have experienced some sort of damage and become freewilled.  Some localities are fearful of freewilled wind-ups, but in most places they are accepted into society. There are persistent rumors of isolated wordlets of wind-up beings that have become quite mad and constitute a danger to flesh beings, but these are no doubt just old space-sailor tales. Probably.

No one knows where the Toymaker himself resides. Some people believe the Toymaker to not be an individual at all, but rather a brand. They suggest that it perpetuates itself by the kidnapping of promising artificers and forces them to work on its factory world, guarded by ever-smiling wind-up soldiers. If such a world existed (and really, it is ridiculous to believe it does), it might even lie beyond the Anadem, perhaps in the wilds of the Belt.

The Anadem

Millions of years hence, when the technology and magic have long ago become one, the center of human-descended civilization will have largely forgotten the quaint backwater of its birth. Still, there  is much to recommend Old Earth as a diverting, if rustic, tourist destination.

The still-blue (or once more blue) world is garlanded with a  swarm of habitats and microworlds, aggregated in orbit over millennia. This curious and eclectic mixes of cultures and species is known as the Anadem.

Upper class youths of Earth have the custom of a the Grand Tour, a rite of passage where they visit worlds of the Anadem in the ships of alien, antigravity wood, brought to Earth in previous ages from some distant world. 

This is a Spelljammer campaign idea. Inspirational media include any number of bande dessinée from Barbarella to the works of Moebius, Don Lawrence's Storm, the works of Jack Vance including The Dying Earth and Planet of Adventure; Matthew Hughes' Henghis Hapthorn stories, and Rob Chilson's Prime Mondeign stories.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 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 September 10, 1981.

Jonah Hex #55: Hex and his pursuers, sent by Turnbull, are forced to work together to defend themselves against El Papagayo's men. One of the younger men begins to view Hex more positive after he saves the group's life more than once, but the leader can't let go of his hate, and in the a confrontation kills the younger man who is defending Hex. Hex then shoots him and is the only survivor.

In the Tejano backup, Mishkin/Cohn and Yeates have the ranger making his escape from the Mexican army and the Comanches, but his friend is killed by his own commander, and he has a show down with the Comanche chief he met in his youth.

New Teen Titans #14: Wolfman and Perez reunite the team. The whole group gets to hear the story of Steve Dayton--who proves to have been brainwashed by Madame Rouge. He attacks the Titans, but Raven manages to defeat him. The Titans track the villains' now-airborne headquarters to the island nation of Zandia,  The Titans are all defeated and captured and Changeling finds himself in the presence of the revived Brotherhood of Evil.

Secrets of Haunted House #44: Snyder and Rodriquez open this one with a topical tale of an unusually hardy plant found in the wake of the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption. A scientist hybridizes it, and it grows to control him, forcing him to feed it neighborhood children. The fire fighters discovering it set the house ablaze in horror, but the smoke only proves to spread the spores. The next story is a weird, sci-fi piece about a guy who's captured by the enemy and tormented by illusions, so even when he escaped he doesn't know truth from psychological warfare.

Kashdan and Henson present a future world desperate for energy whose problems get solved when explorers DNA gets altered on an energy exploration mission, and he and his wife produce an unhuman kid who generates energy. The final story is an EC-esque tale by Harris and Gonzales where a guy murders the owner of a wax museum and hides him in one of the displays. The perfect crime, until it melts the wax on the corpse and he drops his executioner's axe right on his murderer!

Superman #366: "Revenge, Superman-Style." Bates and Swan reveal that it is the alien Superman Revenge Squad responsible for the events of last issue. This issue makes it seem like that was revealed previously, but I took a look at last issue again, and it wasn't. Anyway, Superman says good-bye to everyone, then alters himself into a reptilian alien form to infiltrate the revenage squad. His plan works, and he's accepted as a member of the group. 

The the "In-Between Years" backup  Perry White proves that Superboy is in Metropolis when he secretly observes the Boy of Steel dealing with warring gangsters. He gets him to appear at the Daily Planet to prove to his editor, George Taylor, that the story is true.

Weird War Tales #106: Another War That Time Forgot yarn, another orange dinosaur. This time frogmen with a mission to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier wind up on an island, but one of them follows an alluring island woman to safety. Later he sees a mermaid, and the story never makes clear whether he is hallucinating or not. Barr and Cruz send a near catatonic German WWI vet on a mission to assassinate this Hitler guy that just became leader, but he's thwarted in the end. In a short by Kanigher and Talaoc a U.S. soldier is killed by the fixed bayonet of a dead Wehrmacht trooper. The final story by Kashdan and Ditko is some nonsense about Scottish clans with a feud lasting into modern day, and a witch's curse.

Wonder Woman #286: Kanigher and Delbo present an off-beat story, where it appears that Wonder Woman may be dying of cancer, but no, it's an aspiring actress going out for the part of Wonder Woman in a movie that is dying. Wonder Woman gives the chance to play her in real life, not knowing that the girl has only has a short time to live. Amazon science can't save her, but she dies accepted by them as one of their own.

In the Huntress backup, she tangles with a guy with the 90s name of Karnage who is trying to make a name for himself in the underworld by taking her down.

Star Child

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night, with the party trying to communicate with the child-like star being they had freed last session. The creature didn't know the language but was a quick study. Still, comprehension seemed to lag behind linguistic fluency. The being expressed and interest in a story, and Waylon decided to read from the Wizard of Azurth book.

Meanwhile, the void dragon is getting impatient and anxious for his meal. Kully tries to stall him.

As if they don't have enough problems, and amorphous shadow creature emerges from hiding. It's touch is necrotic and drains strength. The party defeats it, but is forced to take a short rest.

After that, they hatch a plan to make the star child invisible and create an illusion of it to fool the void dragon while they escape. The dragon sees through the illusion quickly, but is at first confused as to the whereabouts of the real creature. Waylon uses that opportunity to attack, and the party is in a fight they initially hoped to avoid.

Using the energy weapons they got in the future, the party gives as good as they get, though not before Waylon goes down. Still, Shade manages to revive him with goodberries while the others make the dragon beat a frustrated retreat to the heavens.

The star child is joined by friends: luminous fairy-type creatures from the stars. She asks for the story, and Wayon (somewhat reluctantly) gives her the book. All the star beings huddle around it, and a sphere of light seems to push the party away and back to their own time. They materialize in Lum-One's workshop.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  September 10, 1981. 

Arak Son of Thunder #4: Thomas and Colon/DeZuniga bring Arak and friends to Charlemagne's court, where Arak's paganism and different appearance provokes Charlemagne's peers and leads to a dual between Arak and Rinaldo, which Arak wins. Later, a malign, living tree grows from the remnant of the Irminsul Charlemagne destroyed, so Valda and Arak must save the Emperor.

Batman #342: After Man-Bat's reform to a hero, then the effective resolution of his storyline in earlier this year, Conway and Novick reset him to adversary mode. After the encounter with Man-Bat in the Batcave last issue, Batman tracks down Francine Langstrom and finds out Kirk actually overdosed himself on his man-bat serum and thinks his daughter died of her illness and Batman is to blame. Batman tracks him down to cure him with the old antidote, but it doesn't work this time and Man-Bat gets away.

The Robin backup by Conway and von Eedon has Robin about to be burned alive on an upside down cross by a Satanic Cult. He manages to get free and takes the woman with him who was the intended sacrifice. They escape in the cult leaders big rig.

DC Comics Presents #40: Conway and Novick team Superman with Metamorpho. Simon Stagg duplicates the Orb of Ra in an attempt to cure Rex Mason of being Metamorpho, but Java the caveman, jealous of Sapphire's love of Mason, steals it and uses it to cause havoc. Our heroes join forces to stop him. It's good to see Metamorpho but this story doesn't really have any of the charm of his 60s run.

This months "Whatever Happened to..." feature we find out what became of the first Air Wave, Larry Jordan. Turns out he was shot and killed by a criminal, and his wife briefly took up the Air Wave identity to bring his killer to justice. 

Flash #304: Bates and Infantino/Smith bring the Flash into the digital age with the introduction of a new villain, Colonel Computron. Computron is out to get Willard Wiggins, the head of Wiggins toys, makers of the new, hugely popularly Captain Computron home video game. We're given two likely suspects--a disgruntled Wiggins Toys engineer and his wife, for Computron's identity, but the story tries to play a bit coy as to which one it is. There's a sequence where Computron digitizes the Flash and puts him in a video game where Infantino's presentation of digitization is pretty good.

In the Firestorm backup by Conway and Broderick, we get the origin of the Hyena, and Firestorm manages to keep her from attacking her family long enough that everybody gets to reconcile.

G.I. Combat #236: The first Haunted Tank has the crew sent on a hostage retrieval mission that seems more inspired by the recent Iran Hostage Crisis and other events of the 70s than anything World War II related. Arab allies of the Germans (called "terrorists" in the story) have kidnapped an American military officer. In the O.S.S. story, a German SS officer and chess champ gets a rematch with a Jewish champion turned O.S.S. operative after there match before the war end in a stalemate. The German officer wins the game--but the O.S.S. agent boob-trapped the board, and the German's predictable moves lead to both of their deaths in an explosion. The next story by Allikas and Rubeny has a G.I. faking correspondence to a dead buddy's mother--but it's okay because he turns out the mother was dead too and her friend from faking it. In a Kanigher/Carrillo story, a flight surgeon grounds a bomber pilot for several medical conditions, then has to help that same pilot fly blind so the surgical team can make a retreat from a Japanese attack.

The final Haunted Tank story is more ridiculous than most. When an explosion concusses Stuart's crew and leaves them acting delirious, Jeb ties them up in the tank and completes the mission solo rather than turn them over to the medics who might could help them because--well, it's not really clear, other than they never reported him for talking to ghosts no one else sees, but I don't think it's the same thing. In the end, Stuart prevails and the crew snaps out of it just in time to ride to the rescue.

Ghosts #107: I think this is the second themed issue we've had since I started this? Anyway, in the first story by Kanigher and Bender, a Welsh king takes his crown to the grave rather than pass it to one of his no-account sons. Which leads them to dig it up and generally engage in treachery and murder until all are dead, and the King's ghost sees it pass into the hands of a young shepherd boy. In the next story with art by Rodriguez, a circus acrobat murders his sisters lover, but then is attacked by a tiger and injured so the only circus job he can get is that of a clown. And he's going to lose that job too, until he steals a crown from a pawnshop and declares himself King of Clowns. That night, he drinks excessively in celebration near an oil lamp, and manage to catch himself, then part of the forest on fire. He dies in the blaze.

Finally, and most unexpectedly, the crown winds up with a chimpanzee who had been taught sign language then given an operation so they she could theoretically speak. The ghost briefly possesses the chimp and speaks through her, but then it winds up in the talons of an eagle who drops it out at sea.

Justice League #197: Hell hath no fury like super-villains scorned! The Ultra-Humanite's plan goes into its final phase with the 10 heroes captured in the previous two parts being banished to Limbo. All the heroes subsequently disappear from Earth-Two. Ultra reveals he knew this all along, and he and the Earth-Two baddies dismiss their duped Earth-One allies. Killer Frost ain't having it. She leads the Earth-One crew to the JLA satellite where they use the transporter to go to Limbo and rescue the heroes. The heroes return to Earth-Two and in a rematch, defeat their opponents, returning things to normal. 

Views on the Great Wheel

Intelligent beings of planar aware civilizations have attempted to conceptualize the meaning of the Outer Planes. Some of the these explanations are mutual exclusive, but that does not mean they are false. The planes are beyond human understanding in their totality. Or best theories are vastly simplified models.

Pseudo-Xrieixes in his frequently cited commentaries to the Analects of Law, proposed that the cosmos was in fact driven by seven syzygies, with the concepts in the pairs being conceptualized as planes, but unable to be fully comprehended in isolation. The earliest of the these was Law and Chaos, but others were elaborated in an increasingly complicated universe:

Community and Isolation
Abnegation of self and egotism
Willing service and imprisonment
Contentment and despair
The natural world and perversion of nature
Liberty and authority
Noble struggle and senseless conflict

Seswura views the planes are distinct entities. She is less concerned with their opposing planes across the wheel, and more concerned with the "major gravities" of concept in the local area. She states their various ethe in the following way (in Grelmarthan's translation):

Mechanus: The Program is All. Execute the Program and Unity will be restored.
Archeron: Law is what Authority makes it. An Army will be forged and subdue enemies without and within.
Hell: The Law must punish all transgression. If Unity cannot be restored we will fashion a new Order.
Gehenna: Nothing burns in Hell but Self-will, and we will immolate it for the New Order.
Hades: All that is left of self is Despair.
Carceri: The Demons of Self-Will must be chained and taught to self-confine.
Abyss: There is only Self and only ever was. All else is ugly falsehood and must be destroyed.
Pandemonium: Is there self? What are these voices that torment?
Limbo: Change is all. Unity is eternal and also never was.
Ysgard: All things are impermanent but the contest. We will harness chaos through noble struggle.
Arborea: Revel in freedom and passion, and let others do the same.
Beastlands: There is a cycle to all things. Be in the moment.
Elysium: What is the Godhead but Joy?
Bytopia: Be content in good works at the foot of the Mountain.
Heaven: There is a Mountain and at its Peak you may know the utter self-lessness of Unity.
Arcadia: Not all may scale the Mountain, but all can find meaning in Law at its foot.

The Known World in the Real World

I've previously re-imagined Karameikos as a state in the Balkans. I don't think it's the only D&D setting Known locale that would be easy to translate into fictional countries in the real world. Here are some others:

Darokin: An alpine microstate and republic (like it's larger neighbor, Switzerland), likely descended from the kingdom of the Lombards. It's a modern banking center.

Glantri: A city-state near the Italian-Slovenian border, landlocked, but not far from the Adriatic.

Ierendi: A volcanic archipelago, part of Macronesia, in the North Atlantic.

The Isle of Dread: A mysterious island in the South Pacific.

And here's a now a non-Known World one:

Barovia: A small region in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe.