Strange Things Along the Road to Thono Inn

After a holiday hiatus, our Gnydrion game in Grok?! continued last night. The party on hand:

• Jerfus Grek (Jason) - A Vagabond, possibly coming up in the world.
• Nortin Tauss (Aaron) - An arcane dabbler in need a good, stout staff.
• Yzma Vekna (Andrea) - A teamster once more.

Drafted for a special mission by the Eminent Compulsor, the party wastes no time in exercising the perquisites such as they are of that position. Cue shopping montage with the hapless Deputy Var Nee in tow.

Provisions obtain for travel and Jerfus now dressed for the job he aspires to rather than the job he has, the party also acquires a caloot-pulled wagon to make the journey. The caloot is pictures above.

On the way, they encounter a peculiar--one of those various of abherrant magical energy. In this case, it's a circle of blue light accompanied by a sound of heavy breathing. When a beetle is placed inside, it gets exuberant growth on its carapace. None of the party deigns to enter themselves.

Closer to the lake, they encounter an intinerant salesman's wagon missing a wheel and apparently abandoned. They find a supple of two sorts of bottles inside. One is labelled "Hyunnir's Remedy" and the other "Balm of Tsura." Imbibing the remedy makes Jerfus feel invigorated, tingly, and extremely confident.

Next, they directed their attentions to a locked trunk. Jerfus fails to jimmy the lock, but Yzma succeeds in breaking it with the butt of her blunderbuss... 

Season of Science Fiction

 Over the past few months, I've been on a science fiction reading kick. Here's most of what I read, leaving out only a few classic short stories from pulp magazines:

The Demon Princes. I listened to the first 2 of Vance's Demon Princes series as audiobooks: The Star King and The Killing Machine. They concern Kirth Gersen and his efforts to bring justice one by one, to the cadre of infamous criminals (The Demon Princes) that massacred his people. These are probably not Vance's best, but middling Vance is still very good. They would have made a very good late 60s-70s sci-fi TV series, I think.

The Sun Eater. This is a multivolume space opera by Christopher Ruocchio. The conceit of the series is a fallen hero, who caused the deaths of billions in destroying a sun to genocide an implacable alien species is relating his life story and how he came to the decision he made. The setting is Dune-esque for the most part but updated to include some more modern post-cyberpunk and transhuman elements. The first novel, Empire of Silence, details Hadrian Marlowe's escape from the future his father has planned and his various travails until he winds up being sent on a mission to find the homeworld of the Cielcin species in hopes of ending their war with humankind.

Howling Dark, the second book in the series, takes Marlowe and his companions out of the worlds of the Empire and into the posthuman societies of the Extrasolarians beyond on a searched for the fabled world of Vorgossos. There they encounter an undying, posthuman king, a character out of their legends, and even greater mysteries.

After that, I checked out some of the short stories he's written in the same setting in the collection Tales of the Sun Eater, Vol. 1, and the novella Queen Amid Ashes from the Sword & Planet. More on that one below.

Sword & Planet. A collection edited by Ruocchio. I haven't read all of it, but most of the stories I have read don't particularly strike me as Sword & Planet--either they are Space Opera and/or Science Fantasy, but I guess they do have swords and planets. Anyway, there is a prequel to Simon Green's Deathstalker series that reminded me of the sometimes goofy but breakneck paced thrills of those books, but DJ Butler's "Power and Prestige" is my favorite. It's a humorous, sort of Vancian Dying Earthish, short dungeoncrawl starring mercenaries Indrajit and Fix.

The Pride of Chanur. I read at least part of this as a kid, but I don't recall if I completed it. In any case, I'm glad I checked it out again. This is the first of group of related novels by Cherryh set in a multi-species Compact and is reportedly part of her large Alliance-Union universe. It concerns the disruption to the political balance of the Compact and to the planetary society of leonine hani after a hani captain, Pyanfar Chanur rescues a member of an unknown species: a human. Cherryh's xenospecies may veer a bit to the anthropomorphic and perhaps monocultural, but their psychologies and cultures are well thought out and interesting and their precarious, barter-based Compact feels much more realistic than any number of feudal kingdoms in space or single galactic governments.

Tar-Aiym Krang. I listened to this as an audiobook and it has the same narrator as the Demon Princes books I listened to, Stefan Rudnicki. It's billed as the second of Alan Dean Foster's novels of Flinx (a young man with psychic abilities) and pet Pip (a poisonous, winged serpent), but it was the 1st actually published. It's part of his larger Humanx Commonwealth universe. Flinx and Pip wind up part of an expedition that takes them off their homeworld of Moth to the ruined world of a long-dead alien species on a search for an ancient artifact. It's short by modern standards, ending pretty much might where a modern novel would be getting started, but there is a sort of naive charm to Foster's world and characters I found appealing.

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 1983 (week 2)

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 January 13, 1983. 

Batman #358:  Conway is joined by Swan this issue, who is certainly an interesting choice for this sort of material. It mostly works, though Croc looks a bit more like Cactus than might be ideal. Killer Croc visits the Tobacconists' Club and tells them he's taking over Gotham. They decide to test him out by having him break into STAR Labs. Meanwhile, Batman and Gordon are tracing the bullet (and the rifle) he used to kill Squid. Robin also learns that Croc is behind the protection racket leaning on the Circus.

Ultimately, Batman finds Croc's home and waits for him there. We get an odd confrontation where Croc seems enraged primarily that the sanctity and solitude of his home has been violated. Croc destroys the building and flees to the river below, losing Batman in the process.

Flash #320: Bates and Infantino/Rodriquez bring the Eradicator story to its conclusion. The Eradicator nearly disintegrates the Mirror Master, but through the trick mirrors the Flash is able to track the Eradicator to the old windmill (for some reason) where he's holding Fiona. The vigilante and the Flash do battle, and it seems like the Flash is going to be killed, but he moves the battle to the cemetery where conveniently the Eradicator's victims are buried close together.  Shocked by the graves, Philips wrests control from the Eradicator personality and turns the power on himself. Miles away, some farmers find Tomar-Re in a field after he was knocked down by a swarm of yellow meteorites and recognize him as a Green Lantern, though not the one they know. Maybe we'll find out about this Green Lantern business next issue?

Anyway, this ends okay, but it was some odd storytelling, almost like an alternate comics evolution. It is Silver Agey (or at least early Bronze) in some ways, but modern in others. I guess it's like some Gerber stories in 70s Marvel (I'm thinking of the Foolkiller stuff, who's a similar villain) but without the indication that it is kind of tongue in cheek. Well, there is Captain Invincible...Maybe it is just more 1976 than 1983?

I confess the noirish Creeper backup is hard for me to follow. The short segments are a part, but it just hasn't engaged me either. Anyway, we finally get something more in the realm of Creeperish doings this issue when the nephew of a doctor involved in these goings on transforms into some sort of monster, and so does Jamie, Ryder's editor's son, who is in jail who was in possession of the fraudulent prescription last issue.

 

G.I. Combat #252: The first Haunted Tank story has the crew in North Africa and forced to work with a similarly situated Wehrmacht tank crew to stay alive under assault by bandits at a poisoned oasis. The second story is a more original one, at least, with an Italian grandfather vowing to name his soon to be born grandson after one of the crew, but when he's injured and near death he can see and hear the ghostly J.E.B. Stuart, so names the kid Giacomo Stuardo.

The O.S.S. story with Kana feels like a complete repeat. At least it's made of repeated elements from other Kanigher yarns. Kana is forced to work with a racist G.I. who doesn't trust him. There's a white guy from a Pacific Island who turns out to be a German working with the Japanese, but the G.I. doesn't want to believe it at first.  

The other tales are by Kashdan with Matucenio and Zamora. In the first, a doll looted from Italy is the death of one G.I. but the savior of another.  In the second, a "Women at War" installment, a woman judo instructor is sent on a mission to Germany to still some plans.

Omega Men #1: After the teasing this issue last month, and months of various writers trying to get fans interested in them, the Omega Men debut in their own series, courtesy of Silfer, Giffen, and DeCarlo. This is a direct sale only title on nicer paper like Camelot 3000. It starts in media res, so if you didn't already know the Omega Men, I could see you being a little lost. For those who do know about the Omega Men and their war with the Citadel, the new thing here is that it appears we'll get some focus and background on the individual members. 

After taking a Citadelian base, the team heads for Changralyn, Broot's native world. They hope to recruit more fighters as strong as him, but Broot tries to warn them his people won't be of much help. When they arrive they find out he was right. The Changralynians are devoted pacifists and refuse use violence, even in self-defense. Further, the Changralynian elders reveal that they have a pact with the Citadel who provides "protection" in exchange for a number of babies given over to them. When they see this transfer in action, Broot becomes enraged and attacks the Gordanians handling it. In retaliation, the Citadel orders a Branx ship to drop a nuke-bomb on a district of one of Changralyn's cities. 

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing #12: Pasko and Yeates continue Swampy's fight with the Golem from last issue. Swamp Thing manages to deactivate it by erasing one of the Hebrew letters inscribed on its forehead, changing the word from "life" to "death." Karen telepathically sends Kripptmann and crew a message challenging them to confront her at a synagogue where Kripptmann once worshipped. Wanting to avoid the golem attacking from wrong foe like last time, They then put Karen's locket on the golem before the re-activate it.

Meanwhile in Munich, Grasp forces his way into the hotel room where Dennis Barclay and Liz Tremayne are doing the "will they, won't they?" and threatens them to learn Kripptmann's whereabouts. Dennis and Liz manage to slug Grasp and escape, but that was Grasp's plan. Now they'll lead him to Kripptmann and the others.

At the synagogue, Swamp Thing, the golem, and the psychics almost kill Karen, but the evil inside her manages to escape the dying vessel. After briefly possessing Liz, it attempts to take control of the Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing's tremendous willpower drives the thing out. 

Grasp gets in a position with a rifle to snipe at the group, and a computer monitor in Sunderland suggests interestingly that his code number is "666." There's a bright flash of light, the evil entity transports Swamp Thing, Liz, Dennis, Kripptmann, Grasp and the golem to a huge metal fortress where they are about to meet Satan.

In the Cuti/Carrillo Phantom Stranger backup, an 18 year-old with progeria so that he looks more like his late 60s dreams of being an astronaut and he's also in love with a young woman who thinks he's an old man. An experimental medical treatment cures him, and he gets both of these dreams. As he's preparing to take his first spaceflight, the Phantom Stranger warns him not to go. He does and comes through one of those time warps astronauts occasionally fall into and returns to Earth decades later, though he hasn't aged. He returns to his home to be great by his girl, also apparently unaged, but the Phantom Stranger reveals to the audience that it's really her daughter.

New Teen Titans #30: While Kid Flash is still histrionic over Raven being evil, The Brotherhood of Evil gets the jump on him, and Speedy and Frances Kane. At the same time, Robin and Starfire accompany Adrian Chase to see Bethany Snow, who offers them information on Brother Blood in return for protection--but really, she's working at Blood's orders. Meanwhile, in what seems an unheralded turn from last issue, Terra gets a new costume and decides to join the Teen Titans. Cyborg meets a co-worker of Sarah Simms's who claims to be her fiancé, making him feel foolish for thinking there might be something between them. Raven resurfaces at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square and the Brotherhood is there, too. The Titans and allies confront them but when Phobia turns the crowd against them, they're unable to prevent Raven's abduction.  Elsewhere, Terry Long proposes to Donna.

Kid Flash's whining aside, this is a solid issue that well mixes the character subplots and the various villain related threads. It makes me a bit wistful for the time when so much would happen in one issue. 

Superman #382: Bates and Swan/Hunt get to the end of the Superman/Superboy switch and finish the Euphor business. Superman/Boy manages to defeat the Euphor-empowered Lois with a nerve pinch and brings her to the Fortress of Solitude where he reveals what's been going on, which makes relieves Lois as now she realizes why he's been so distant and had eyes for Lana. When Superman/Boy realizes that recreating the accident is the only way to reverse things, she reminds him Superboy/Man in the past has probably already had this thought and is likely waiting on him in the timestream. Makes sense, I guess.

Anyway, that works out and Superman then rushes to confront Euphor who after revealing his origin on TV has taken over Metropolis. Superman can't defeat Euphor directly but tricks him into following him through time (despite the other dilemma is this storyline showing the dangers of time travel!) to the destruction of Krypton. Witnessing it triggers his super-grief (my term, not the issues) that causes Euhpor's power to overload when he tries to absorb it. Everybody in Metropolis gets their negative emotions back. Yay.

Journey to the Center of the Mind

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with a quest in the role of Zabra Kadabra (the pre-gen enchantress from Mortzengersturm). 

Viola, the Clockwork Princess, needs a suit of armor called the Quicksilver Panoply as some sort of control mechanism for the metal giant she plans to unearth to overthrow the Wizard of Azurth. This armor hasn't been made but has been conceived of in the mind of Gob, the giant, crystalline gnome who was the co-creator or constructor of the Land of Azurth.

She wants the party to use a backdoor she had previously placed into the dreaming or meditating mind of Gob as he sits quiescent in the center of the Earth. Easy enough, she says.

The party is dubious, but she gives them a cubic device for making entry and tells them about the basic inhabitants of Gob's mind. There are the friendly, glittering and birdlike Fantsies, and the malevolent, noxious Phanfasms. She also tells them in thumbnail sketch what they need to know to collect the armor pieces.

Off they go. They discover the crystalline recesses of the mind to also be inhabited by other creatures. Some are dreams or thoughts of Gob, but there are goblins who were smuggled in by the Phanfasms, and they have formed too factions. Some are soldiers of the Phanfasms in areas they seldom go themselves. The others are rebels, mentored by a Kobold druid, seeking liberation from Phanfasm control.

The party manages to get on friendly terms with the rebel goblins, but has to almost immediately slaughter a group of Phanfasm soldiers.

Avoiding fighting with most dream creatures, the part comes to a dining hall where High Elven warriors in finery are supping. The elves refused to speak with the party, and their snoody air is irritating to the group. Things seem about to come to a head when the party is determined to cross through their hall, no matter what.

This adventure is an adaptation of the Role Aids adventure, Swordthrust. It's one I've long wanted to reskin for Azurth, and I'm glad I finally got the chance

Two Species, Two Systems

For comparison, here are two of my Strange Stars setting sophont species in both Black Star and Star Scoundrels terms. Both are pretty simple! For Black Star, species just provides innate traits as listed. In Star Scoundrels the species is a Trademark which is sort of described by the words in parentheses after it. Those words might also suggest Edges that could be selected.

Follow the links with the names to get more background on the species.

HWURU

In Black Star:

Traits: Claws, Tough.

In Star Scoundrels:

Hwuru (Strong, Climb, Forest Survival, Claws, Intimidate)

BOMOTH

In Black Star:

Traits: Extra Limbs, Acute Hearing.

In Star Scoundrels:

Bomoth (Enhanced Hearing, Extra Manipulators, Music, Slang, Philosophical, Unflappable)

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of January 6, 1983. 

Blackhawk #257: We get a Chaykin cover on this issue. He'll go on to do some good stuff with the Blackhawks later in the decade. For now, Evanier and Spiegle are continuing the story from the last couple of issues. The Blackhawks manage to track Merson to Zurich and strongarm him into creating an antidote for the Ubermeister transformation. Four Blackhawks fly to Paris to get von Tepp. Chop Chop is guarding Merson but gets ambushed and outfought by Domino.

In Paris, Blackhawk is captured by von Tepp and his monster. Von Tepp steals Blackhawk medallion as a trophy. He doesn't know it's the nightmare medallion, and his will being somewhat less than our hero's, is overwhelmed and he dies of psychic distress. Blackhawk shoots the monster with von Tepp's luger not knowing it is his friend Stanilaus. It's not too late to save him though. as the rest of the Blackhawks show up, and they administer the antidote to Stanislaus, who (in the following few days or weeks) recovers.

 

DC Comics Presents #56: The most notable thing about this issue is the cover by Kane that prefigures the iconic cover to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. The story by Kupperberg and Swan is less memorable. Superman and Power Girl are teleported to another universe that is ruled by some be-permed jerk named Maaldor, who forces them to compete in gladiatorial games or see the people of that universe destroyed. The Swan's art renders a story staid that in the hands of a Marvel artist of this era would have at least been dynamic. I do kind of like the usual Bronze Age Superman ending where Supes has to kind of trick the badguy rather than beat him up.

Fury of Firestorm #11: The Hyena bugs me because her/his (there are two now) whole deal is really just a werewolf schtick and Broderick draws the creature as a wolf person not a hyena person and the colorist goes along with it. We learn Summer infected her Arizona doctor with the Hyena curse, and Ronnie is apparently also infected but holding it at bay with Firestorm powers, I guess. There's a fight atop the World Trade Center, where Firestorm blasts the Summer hyena, sending her falling presumably to her death, but it's continued next issue. Also, Stein's ex ostensibly enlists Ronnie's help to try to convince Martin to get back together with her. 

Justice League #213: After a lackluster arc the last two issues, Conway and now Heck/Tanghal bring something that starts out a bit more interesting. In fact, it's very Marvel-y, like a combination of Hank Pym's recent (in 1982) woes and weirdly, Ant-Mam & Wasp: Quantumania. Due to some career setbacks, Ray Palmer suffers a nervous breakdown and, when his wife Jean and Hawkman attempt to help him, he rebuffs them and vanishes into an unexplored, sub-atomic world--the Microcosmos. Using one of Ray's inventions, the Justice League follows him, but they lose their memories in the process. They encounter a mysterious woman called Wanderer and have to fight reptilian humanoids she calls Devil Guards, minions of Goltha, the micro-world's tyrant whose symbol is curiously like the Atom's. The heroes go with her to the capital city, unaware that the Atom, now a comparative giant, is a captive there, Gulliver-and-the-Lilliputians style, just behind a castle's walls.

Wonder Woman #302: Mishkin and Colan bring the Artemis story to a close. Wonder Woman spends much of the issue chained in a dungeon which provides plenty of time for flashbacks to tell Artemis' origin story: how she was Hippolyta's best friend and the first chosen "Wonder Woman" emissary, but then was corrupted by Man's World and defied Athena's will. The skeletal Artemis is out to kill Hippolyta, but Diana manages to escape just in time to stop her. In one-on-one combat, she defeats the original Wonder Woman by stealing her sword, the source of her unlife. Artemis's skeleton crumbles to dust. Elsewhere, Circe, the sorceress responsible for reviving Artemis, watches and vows revenge.

In the Huntress backup by Cavalieri and DeCarlo/DeZuniga Helena thwarts a D-grade villain called Pat Pending whose gimmick he uses a lot of novelty gadget inspired stuff, but he uses a drug to (I guess) slow his respiration and heart to fake his death--and sets Huntress up to look like a murderer. How he wakes up and escapes before an autopsy is performed, I hope gets explained next issue, but I'm not holding my breath.

Arak Son of Thunder #20: It seems like the Thomases and Gonzales/Alcala are sort of padding out the issue count on this journey to White Cathay. This issue, as Arak and his companions cross a vast desert led by the priest Johannes we get fantasy desert danger buffet including a sandstorm, sinkholes, a giant antlion, and undead warriors. Meanwhile, the sorceress Angelica watches it all, and it gives her a chance to fill Malagigi in on the history of her land. The city is currently besieged by tartars, and Angelica seeks the answer to a riddle which will bring a powerful demon to her side. Malagigi, knows the answer, but refuses to tell lest it lead to harm for his approaching friends.

In the Valda backup, Valda is on the hunt for Pip, the son of Carolus Magnus that got disowned last issue. She has to fend off a pack of wolves, but eventually she finds the hunchback prince hiding in a graveyard. She gets him to shelter, then she hears a ghostly evil voice...

Star Scoundrels

 

I mentioned Black Star from LakeSide Games a few weeks ago, but since I've discovered another neat, rules lite, space opera game, Star Scoundrels is from Peril Planet. It's another game clearly intended to play Star Wars without obviously violating the IP and mentioning that. It uses the Action Tales system I've appreciated in the cyberpunk game Neon City Overdrive, which is also pretty much the same system as the fantasy game Dungeon Crawlers and the author's game Hard City for Osprey.

The basic mechanic is a d6 dice pool of Action Die and Danger Die, with graduated success from complete failure to complete success. Dice are added to the pool based on player traits, Threat (enemy) traits, and situational modifiers. All rolls are done by the players. 

Each Danger Die can cancel out a matching result on an Action Die, and uncancelled 6s on Danger Die accumulating Pressure. Pressure gives the GM the ability to make things more difficult for the players when it reaches a certain level. It's like Threat in 2d20 games in that regard but isn't near as much of an economy around it nor as many rules relating to it.

PCs are described by Trademarks (sort of a basic concept, role, profession, and alien species), Edges (specializations or talents linked to a Trademark), Flaws (disadvantages or troubles), gear, Grit (hit points), and Flow (the Force stand-in). Flow can be used to increase the success of roles or use a second Trademark die in a check.

Starships are statted similar to Threats. There are some fairly simple rules given for space battles and a table of random space travel encounters.

There are also random tables for adventure generation, planets, and names.

All and all, it offers the barest bit more crunch (but in places that flesh out a character a bit more) than Black Star while remaining very rules light. Either would be a great choice for a Star Wars pickup game or one shot.