Every Picture Tells A Story

I think everyone would agree that evocative artwork is really helpful in setting the tone and conveying the feel of an rpg world and from the internet I know that a lot of people collect inspirational images in building a new setting, like I do.

It strikes me that given how much the images matter in conveying the setting, that picking new images could be used to give a setting a whole new vibe. A setting makeover, if you will.

Consider the following images:

Both of them are meant to illustrate the same literary work (Edgar Rice Burroughs's Gods of Mars), and they even include identifiable elements, but they have a very different feel. The first, by Manolo Prieto, is a bit phantasmagorical, perhaps even whimiscal. It suggests a Barsoom more akin to fairy tales or the works of Lord Dunsany, maybe. The second, by Michael Whelan, seems much more a place of serious, more sci-fi-ish adventure. I think both GMs and player's would approach a Mars illustrated in the first way somewhat different from the second.

Here's another example. Different versions of the dwarves from The Hobbit:

The first illustration is from a Russian edition of the book. These dwarves look like they've might sing "heigh ho" and hang out with Snow White. The later ones would be more at home in improbable  action sequences.

So next time you think your bored with your setting, maybe your just bored with how your conceiving your setting. New visuals maybe just help.

Warlord Wednesday: Dragon's Lair

The Warlord is dead! Long live The Warlord! This is my issue by issue examination of his adventures. The earlier installments can be found here...

"Dragon's Lair"

Warlord (vol. 4) #14 (July 2010) Story by Mike Grell; Pencils by Chad Hardin; Inks by Hardin & Wayne Faucher

Synopsis: The so-called dragon that Shakira assures them isn't, sends our heroes scrampling for cover after Joshua sticks an arrow in it. Joshua's hiding place isn't quite good enough, and his sword hand gets seared by a fiery blast. The beast retreats, but the new Warlord's hand looks pretty bad:

At the same time, Tara feels intense pain and wonders if something is going wrong with the pregnancy. Jennifer checks on her only to get pushed away by a mystic blast from the baby in Tara's womb! It appears Joshua's sister to be can feel his pain.

Joshua and friends return to the old blacksmith. Joshua needs a new sword forged: one that can stand the heat. He brought the large piece of metal that shielded him back in the cave for that purpose. McBane thinks it's something from meteorite.

Joshua collapses with his injuries. While Alysha tends him, McBane helps the blacksmith at his forge. Joshua's hand begins to heal at an incredible rate. Alysha and McBane can't believe. Shakira is more jaded and says: "It's just magic."

Back in Shamballah, Tara's pain is gone. Jennifer explains that her daughter is healing Joshua. Tara is suprised to learn it's a girl. Jennifer says that as her half-sister and Joshua's full sister she shares traits of both them. Then, Jennifer senses something that suprises her...

Meanwhile, Joshua's hand is almost completely healed, whcih is a good thing because the blacksmith has completed the sword:

He also had enough metal to make a gauntlet, greaves, and a shield. The blacksmith asks Joshua what he wants on his shield but we don't hear his answer. Meanwhile, Alysha has been kidnapped by the father of last issues sacrificial "victim." He's taking her to the dragon.

Joshua and McBane trail them to the cave. They go in: Joshua with his new sword and armor and McBane with an AK-47.  Going deeper than before into the "dragon's" lair, they find it isn't an asteroid at all, but a space ship. They also find Alysha and her kidnapper:

The man begs to be killed and Alysha obliges him--but the shot brings the alien running. Joshua puts an area through it's searchlight "eye" and McBane lobs a grenade at it. The creature keeps coming. Joshua sends his friends away, and goes into battle:

The two fight. Joshua manages to damage it's flamethrower mask. With the mask off, the alien reveals it can speak. It calls Joshua (and his people by extinction) primitive and makes an interesting claim:

Joshua promises what happens next won't be an accident. He vaults over the creature's head and delivers a blow to the back of his neck. At his friends' urging, Joshua runs out the door that is irising shut to meet them.

The alien is apparently dying, but wants to strike one last blow. He pushes some buttons on a console, that send a beam of energy up from a group of step pyramids out of the polar opening and into space. He also apparently sets his ship to self-destruct. Our heroes get our just in time.

On the outer world, a couple of astronomers track a signal leaving the earth and shooting out toward Orion. E.T. has just phoned home!

Things to Notice:

• Joshua adds some metal to his Warlord outfit.

Where it comes from: 
I would be surprised if alien visitors have never been mistaken for dragons before, much in the same way they've been mistaken for gods, but I don't know of a specific story. Marvel Comics' Makluans fit the bill, I suppose

Starships in the Strange Stars

Though the spacecraft of the Strange Stars vary a lot in appearance and use, most of their systems are fairly standardized. Some of this similarity is due to the exchange of technologies through trade, but there is another reason. The level of technology across the known galaxy is lower than in ages past; many ships currently in use are the products of previous civilizations or at least built from parts scavenged from ancient vessels.

One example of a lost technology is superluminal drives. The vast majority of modern craft are sublight vessels that utilize the hyperspace network to short-cut interstellar distances. The most advanced current civilizations have a rudimentary understanding of the science behind some FTL travel methods, but they are are currently unable to build them. Some researchers have noted that the ancients made use of these other methods rarely, suggesting there was something that made the hyperspace network preferable.

The salvage of ancient derelicts or wrecks is an important (and lucrative) activity. Gravity generators and inertial suppressors are only two of the important technologies than many civilizations are able to exploit, but not necessarily manufacture themselves. Intact data systems are a particularly spectacular find. There is always hope of engineering schematic files executable in modern nanofactories.

New or improved weapon systems always find an enthusiastic market. The holy grail for salvagers would be one of the twelve great battleships of the Archaic Oikumene. These vessels were the size of cities and all possessed of sophont minds. Some of these great ships (like Terrible Swift Sword and Leviathan Smiles) are known to have been destroyed. Others (notably Achilles' Last Stand, Fearful Symmetry, and Conspiracy of Ravens) have disappeared completely from history, possibly restructuring themselves into vessels of different types.

Gaean Reach

This weekend I found out that Pelgrane Press has a second rpg out based on the work of Jack Vance. (The first of course being The Dying Earth.) The Gaean Reach, written by Robin Laws with layout/art direction and cover by Chris Huth (who's work you've probably seen a lot of places--not the least of which being Weird Adventures!), takes its inspiration from Vance's science fiction tales and combines the Skullduggery system of the latest edition of The Dying Earth with GUMSHOE.

The Gaean Reach is a sub-setting of Vances connected science fiction universe. It's the setting of the Cadwal Chronicles and the Alastor Cluster trilogy, as well as several of his standalone stories. The Demon Princes series setting (the Oikumene) bears some resemblance to the Gaean Reach and the game assumes they are the same place (though wikipedia says this is inconclusive). In any case, it's a future future setting with the sort of flourishes you'd expect from the works of Vance.

I haven't got to fully digest the rules yet. I like GUMSHOE, but I don't know much about Skullduggery. Still, the setting information alone is well worth the price of the pdf.

Scenes from the Strange Stars

More images from around the galaxy...

A section of the Strip, a megapolis within a 3.8 million km diameter orbital ring habitat.

The sophont battleship Auspicious Thunder Resounding just before the so-called "Kilosec War" engagement during the collapse of the Radiant Polity.

A Smaragdine military contractor poses for a snapshot after a successful raid on a raid on a pirate asteroid hideout. The pirates were responsible for large scale personality theft and numerous mind-slavery related copyright violations.

Bomoth Revisited

In the midst of reading a few FATE games (Starblazer Adventures and Bulldogs! and informed by the SA supplement Mindjammer), I figured converting some of the species I've already created was a good way to try the system out. So here is a Starblazer Adventures version of Bomoth.

Suggested Aspects:
Caterpillar-like form
Invoke: to get into places a humanoid might not be able to go.
Compel: when trying to blend in to a crowd.
Cool, Man
Invoke: to be unfazed in a stressful situation.
Compel: to feel a real sense of danger when it might be imminent.
Hep
Invoke: to find the party or score the drug.
Compel: to fool Johnny Law or pass as a solid citizen.
Live for the Music
Invoke: to play a gig.
Compel: to focus on something else.

Special Abilities:
Extra Set of Hands [-1]: Additional limbs allow a supplementary action without the -1 penalty
Vocal Mimicry [-1]: Bomoth can flawlessly recreate voices or sounds.

Warlord Wednesday: Son Rise

The Warlord is dead! Long live The Warlord! This is my issue by issue examination of his adventures. The earlier installments can be found here...

"Son Rise"

Warlord (vol. 4) #13 (June 2010) Story by Mike Grell; Art by Chad Hardin

Synopsis: Ewan McBane and Jennifer Morgan are standing on a tower looking out over Skartaris. McBane still can't believe it. Jennifer says she can barely remember the outer world--but she does miss the moon and stars. McBane (ever the romantic) says these days most of what she sees would be space junk.

McBane's comments are prophetic as in orbit above the Earth, an asteroid collides with an old Soviet satellite, destroying it. The debris of both streaks earthward. The U.S. military tracking it anticipates an impact at the North Pole with a "Tunguska-type event."

The impact doesn't come. The asteroid disappears into Skartaris. Dinosaurs run in terror from the impact as a mushroom cloud rises. The Skartarian sky darkens.

Alysha and Joshua (Tinder) ride out to investigate. They meet fleeing refugees with a tale of a terrible beast ravaging the land who was either awakened or freed by the impact:

They describe the monster as a giant with a single, blazing eye in the middle of its forehead. They sent their best warriors against it, and they never returned. Their screams echoed across the mountains. The refugees further warn that now that all the food is gone in their lands, the beast will be on the move.

Thinking on this news, Joshua broods. He tells his mother: "I'm not my father." Her reply:

Shakira helps Joshua suit up. He tells her that he doesn't even know what he's doing. She replies that his father didn't either. But he tried. He made mistakes, but he tried.

"You knew him better than anyone," Joshua says. "Perhaps you can help me understand him."

"I doubt it." Shakira replies.

In any case, Joshua is ready:

Alysha and McBane are going with him. Alysha watches Shakira in cat form jump onto Joshua's shoulders. "Some things never change," she says.

Riding into the area of devastation, our heroes are surprised to find an old smith still at work at his forge. He tells them that not everyone has fled. The others that are left realized the beast came out to hunt. The old man offers to buy Joshua's armor as he doesn't expect them to survive. Joshua declines.

Our heroes ride on and come upon a sacrifice in progress: a young woman is tied a stone table. Before the sacrificial dagger can fall:

They free the woman and drive off the others, but they find the woman didn't want to be rescued. It was her lot. She runs toward the mouth of a nearby cave. Still, she doesn't intend to let it take her alive like the others. She puts the dagger to her throat.

A blast from the cave kills her!  And the beast comes forth:

Things to Notice:

• Joshua gets his own Warlord duds.
• Yet another beauteous maiden is offered up as a sacrifice. It happens a lot in Skartaris, apparently.

Where it comes from: 
The title of this issue is an obvious play on words and a fitting follow-up to last issues "Sunset."

Joshua's Warlord outfit is a bit more modest than his old man's. Actually, it harkens back to the original black outfit Travis Morgan wore up until issue #9. He retains the metal shoulder guard and winged helm, though. He doesn't have his father's pistol, though. Instead, he carries a bow.

The "willing sacrifice" is a trope Grell employed before back in issue #48. Ironically, the danger being placated there was from outside Skartaris, too.