Warlord Wednesday: Innocence Avenged!

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Innocence Avenged"

Warlord #89 (January 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art by Rich Buckler.

Synopsis: Thanks to Scarhart’s tracking ability, our heroes are able to track the captain of the guards who captured Patch’s son through the streets of Bakwele. Morgan surprises the guard in the walled garden where the man’s visiting his favorite courtesan. He disarms the guard with his superior skill, and forces him to reveal where the boy has been taken: the Palace.  Pursued by the house’s guards Morgan manages to escape by pretending to be one of the patrons.

Patch is none too happy. First she threatens to tear down the palace, then blames Morgan for her son’s capture and slugs him.  Before she can stab him, he convinces her he understand what she's feeling and gets her to calm down. He understands all too well.

Far away beneath Fire Mountain, the son Morgan thinks is dead is with his new pal Chaka in a treasure room of the Evil One. They find a jewel-boxed with a glowing gem inside. As Tinder marvels at it, the eyes of the Evil One glow in a nearby portrait...

Back in Bakwele, Lord Sabertooth has arrived. He asks to see the prisoner and is annoyed to find it’s a little boy. When the boy starts talking about the Warlord coming to defeat the Atlanteans, Sabertooth flies into a rage.  He’s angry the governor has allowed the such a rumor to spread in the city and give their enemies hope.  Such hope must be squelched:

Morgan and friends are planning a way to free Avenel, when they get word that the Atlanteans are building a platform in the square to publically flog the boy.  Sabertooth has set a trap: There are plenty of soldiers, crossbowman on the roof, and even an energy cannon.

Sabertooth is out to quell this Warlord business.  He says the tales are false: The Warlord was a coward and a traitor--and he claims to have already killed him. He plans to whip the boy until he admits his stories were untrue and denounces the Warlord.

Patch flies into a rage and would likely make a suicidal attack, except Morgan coldcocks her.  Instead of a frontal assault, he and Scarhart are going to swim through a river entrance into the pipes from the royal bath. It’s a daring race against time as Sabertooth continues to torture the boy.

When Morgan bursts onto the platform, no one is more surprised than Sabertooth.  He slips and calls him “the Warlord,” giving lie to his previous words and exciting the crowd.  They fight:

Allowing himself to get injured to gain advantageous position, Morgan disarms Sabertooth.  It’s the boy’s freedom—or the Atlantean beastman’s life! Sabertooth gives in and even tells the crowd he’s a “cowardly worm” when Morgan makes him. Scarhart shoots an arrow with a rope attached, allowing Morgan and Avenel to swing to safety.  They all escape into the confused crowd.

Later, Avenel is excited to meet his hero and asks Morgan when he will free Bakwele. Morgan disappoints the boy when he says he has to go—he has his own city to save.  Patch accuses Morgan of giving the people hope then not taking responsibility—which unbeknownst to her, has be a common theme of Morgan’s time in Skartaris.

When Morgan and friends sail away on the Wind Shadow, they leave a disillusioned boy shedding tears behind.

Things to Notice:

• This marks the return of Lord Sabertooth to the saga. He looks quite a bit different in Buckler's design than he did in Jurgens's.
• This issue is arguably the first time Morgan steps out a bit on Tara by kissing a girl when he wasn't in some sort of altered mental state at the time.

Where It Comes From:
This issue continues with the recurrent Warlord theme of Travis Morgan having a noble goal, but failing to follow through.

Lord Sabertooth is back again after his last appearance in issue #76.

The Story So Far

For the benefit of the players' in my Weird Adventures game (and at the request of Tim Shorts) here’s a summary of what the players' exploits and investigations so far. Hopefully it will he of interest to other readers, as well:

Heward Kane, celebrity detective, hired the PCs to (legally) retrieve the body of John Vandemaur from the family crypt. After fighting some ghoul hoodlums, our heroes discovered that the corpse of Vandemaur wasn’t in the coffin, but instead a very live sorcerer, magically bound.

Indrid Bliss was that sorcerer. He was unable to escape our heroes, despite his best efforts. He warned the PCs against further involvement in this business, but wouldn’t explain what "this business" was. Bliss was taken from them a gargoyle before they could fully interrogate him.

Viviane Vandemaur is John’s widow. The ex-waitress from the across the Eldritch River (Hoborxen) was never accepted by the stuffy, Old Money Vandemaur family, particularly its matriarch, Urania. Viviane spun our heroes a tale of her husband dabbling in dark magic with Bliss as a business partner. She's still convinced that her husband is dead and that Bliss is responsible. She asked the PCs to continue the search for him

When they followed the trail to Club Tekeli-Li in Hoborxen (where Bliss and Vandemaur supposedly conducted their business) our heroes again ran into the gargoyle. A mysterious crystal orb from Hoborxen’s alien doppleganger seemed to keep the gargoyle at bay. The creature said he had been sent to kill the PCs, but by whom? Viviane suggested the gargoyles were friends with Bliss, but then why did he seem reluctant to go with the one who came for him?

And where is John Vandemaur?  Maybe the ritually flayed and dismembered corpse the gang found at the club in Hoborxen is him, but that remains to be confirmed.

More to follow...

It Just Gets More Weird: Updates to the Index

I've added a few more entries to the Weird Adventures Index page for your edification and enjoyment.  First off, a couple of interesting characters of the sort the City frequently produces: the paladin of the working poor, Joan Darkling, and the oozing, accidental crime lord, Waxy Moldoon.

In the monster section, the formians are staging a very efficient and quiet invasion. A couple of para-elementals are a bit more likely to get noticed: petro-elementals rise from oil wells and mephiti menace Char Hill, a town atop a coal seam fire.  Tuning in to a radio para-elemental can be just as nasty, but in a more different way.

After that, if your looking for a an escape from those noxious (and toxic) creatures, how about a vacation to that sweet tooth Shangri-La, the Rock Candy Mountain.

Swarm of Husks

Likely the product of a deranged (and necromantically adept) mind, a swarm of husks is composed of undead insects that died in light fixtures or between window panes. These creatures died in crude despair as only the mindless can know it, and that inchoate emotion, combined with energy from the negative plane, is a powerful force.  These swarms take some time to gather, but once formed will do the bidding of the necromancer who raised them.

Husk swarms have the standard properties of a swarm of diminutive creatures, plus those standard to undead. Any creature beginning its turn inside the swarm must make a saving throw or be nauseated for 1 round. The husk swarm is hungry for life force and will crawl into the mouth or nostrils of a victim (failed saving throw) over a period of 1 minute.  Once inside a living thing, they drain 1d4 levels from it (or add negative levels, however you want to look at) like the spell enervation.

Some anecdotal reports suggest that bright lights can attract a swarm, distracting them from living targets.

Saint Joan of the City

On the southern end of Eldside Park there is a bronze statue of a stern-faced woman in plate armor holding a sword. The lady couldn’t be more out of place, surrounded by greenery and the picnicking wealthy. Her battles were fought in the stockyards, waterfront, and railyards. This is Joan Darkling--to the City’s labor movement, Saint Joan.

Joan Darkling was born in the Smaragdine coal country. She saw the worst of the mining companies' attempts to stop miners from organizing. Strikers were shot by hired mercenaries. Agitators died of poisoning from deadly ores inserted by malign kobolds imported from Ealderde. Joan left the Smaragdines in her teen years and became an adventurer, but never forgot where she came from.

Joan survived many a delve to retired from adventuring young. She took up the cause of the City’s workers with the same zeal she’d showed in slaying monsters. She wore magical plate armor she had scavenged from a delve to labor rallies. They were just another form of battle.

The famous folk song about Joan says she died after her battle with the “Golem of Capitalism”--a brazen, bull-headed construct sent against her by a consortium of robber barons. She defeated the bull, but succumbed to poisoning, caused by the alchemical smoke rising from the bull’s boiler and snorted from its nostrils. That’s what the song says.

In reality, no one knows what became of Joan Darkling. It is true that she disappeared soon after her battle with the golem, but no death was ever recorded, and the last to see her say they she was pained by a few wounds but seemed in no way dying.

Some say Joan sleeps somewhere in a subterranean chamber, awaiting the time when she is needed again. When injustices visited upon the poor and downtrodden worker will again require her to do battle with monsters.

Joan Darkling’s Sword: Joan wielded a Holy Avenger, an intelligent blade who adopted Darkling's crusade. It has a particular dislike of fat cats and acts as a bane of monied interests and their agents, getting a +1 against such individuals, regardless of alignment.

Warlord Wednesday: A Dream Rekindled

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"A Dream Rekindled"

Warlord #88 (December 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Rich Buckler.

Synopsis: In the port city of Bakwele, Scarhart and Morgan are seeking provisions, but wind up getting into a fight when a soldier insists Scarhart take the place of an injured slave bearing the governor’s litter. Outnumbered, our heroes try to escape into back alleys, but are blocked by a dead end.

Only briefly stymied, they escape across the rooftops after Scarhart knocks a chimney down on their pursuers.  Morgan’s impressed:

Meanwhile, hundreds of leagues away, beneath the Great Fire Mountain, Tinder and his new buddy Chaka discover ancient chambers full of treasure and decorated with the sinister image of someone familiar to readers of this saga…

In Bakwele, Morgan and Scarhart seek a contact in the black market, Patch, recommended to them by Cap’n Hawk. Asking around in a tavern only gets them in another brawl, as they're mistaken for Atlantean spies.  Our heroes are saved by the appearance of Patch, who throws a mean knife:

Patch takes them back to her home to talk. They meet her young son, Avenel, who excitedly tells them that a leader is coming to free them from Atlantean tyranny—a rider came through proclaiming it.  Morgan gets excited too, and asks what this leader’s name is. 

His hope dies when the boy tells him that the man is called “the Warlord.” He realizes the boy must have met Aton when he was Morgan’s herald, proclaiming the army of liberation.  But all that ended. Aton died at Deimos’s hand and the army of ex-gladiators became bandits. 

Morgan can’t hide his tears from the boy; he quickly changes the subject, though, and gets back to business. Soon, they’re sneaking down to the docks, so that Patch’s men can smuggle provisions onto the boats from the Wind Shadow.  The plan hits a snag when they're discovered by Atlantean troops. 

They manage to escape—all except Avenel.  The boy is in Atlantean hands and on his way to interrogation!

Things to Notice:

• The Atlantean troops in Bakwele eschew the usual horned helmets we've seen before for capes. Maybe these are just collaborators?
• The Evil One was pretty full of himself.  His treasure room has pictures of his diabolic mug all over the walls.

Where It Comes From:
This issue goes back to the recurrent Warlord theme of Travis Morgan having a noble goal, but failing to follow through. It also hints that he's starting to be mythologized a bit: Aton's visit was well before the Atlantean invasion, but Avenel assumes the two are related.

The Evil One was last seen (and defeated) by a Travis and Jennifer Morgan and friends in issue #66. He was turned back to his original form, the Gollum-esque Craetur in that issue.

Spirit of Radio

Sometimes the voice on the airwaves isn’t human. Late night on an empty frequency you can sometimes hear plaintive whispers between the static: the lonely call of a radio spirit. These electromagnetic para-elementals appear to arise spontaneously from radio transmissions. They're often a nuisance--and sometimes a real danger--within the City and elsewhere.

Radio para-elementals can manifest in any radio. They typically speak in snippets of broadcasts they’ve overheard, mimicking the various voices whose words they steal. They can, however, mimic a single radio personality's voice if they choose, but seem to do it less commonly. Having matured in a sea of pitchmen and songtresses, they develop uncanny abilities to manipulate humans with their assumed voices. They can replicate the bard-like abilities of fascinate, suggestion, and mass suggestion.

They’re not limited to mimicking human voices. They can fascinate equally well with music, or lull to sleep with a magical lullaby. Also, they can create a high volume static which acts as a sonic burst--though this typically blows out the speaker of the radio they're utilizing.

If particularly enraged, a spirit can arc forth from a speaker as pure electricity. It does 1d6 points of damage (additional 1d6 to someone in metal armor). This is treated as a charging attack. This attack causes the para-elemental to dissipate with the effort.  It takes then 2d6 days to reform.

RADIO PARA-ELEMENTAL
AC: 2 [18]
Move: 18
HD: 6
Attacks/Dmg: 1 spell-like power or arc
Defenses: immune to electricity, and other elemental immunities
Special: Vulnerable to water (1d8 points per gallon of water, or double damage on water-based spells), spell like abilities as above (and perhaps other bardic abilities): fascinate, suggestion, mass suggestion, sonic burst.