Warlord Wednesday: The Iron Devil

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

"The Iron Devil"
Warlord (vol. 1) #7 (June-July 1977)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis: Morgan and Mariah, searching for Shamballah and Tara, have arrived in the city of Kiro. In the Thieves Market, Mariah draws the unwanted attention of a group of ruffians. Morgan charges to the rescue, cutting through the gang, but is caught unaware by an attack from behind, but is saved by Mariah and her rifle. The man turns, intent on putting his axe in her skull, but death catches up with him, and he dies at her feet.

The two head for the shop of the swordsmith Dak Bel Shan, who knows the secret of "Damascus steel." Morgan comissions him to make a sword for Mariah--and gives him her rifle for steel. Mariah protests, but Morgan points out the lack of stopping power of her gun, and the lack of replacement ammunition, and she agrees.

Morgan also suggests she get a Skartarian makeover to be less conspicuous. They head to the bathhouse, and, after a spa experience, Mariah emerges with Skartarian make-up, revealing outfit--and high heels.

Thanks to the story-aiding peculiarities of Skartarian time, the smith is finished. Mariah and Morgan get her sword and stiletto. Mariah surprises Morgan by revealing she's no stranger to the sword as six-time Russian National Sabre Champion. Leaving the smith, the two are ambushed and Morgan's knocked out by a blow to the skull.

Morgan awakens in a cell with Mariah. The two don't wait long before a guard comes to take time to the king. The two are escorted to the throne room, and Morgan is surprised to find Machiste there. Morgan's former oar-mate is the king of Kiro.

Machiste carries an unusual axe that never leaves his hand. He reveals he found it in a cave while on his way back to Kiro in the severed hand of a skeleton. The axe was a lucky find as it allowed him to defeat a marauding tribe of beastmen, by increasing his battle-savagery. Though the axe is now attached to his hand, Machiste is unfazed, revelling in the power he feels when he holds it. Illustrating the effect its has on him, Machiste attacks a serving girl who accidentally knocks over his drink.

Morgan intervenes and reminds Machiste of the ideals of freedom from tyranny they had previously fought for. He and Mariah move to leave, but an enraged Machiste has his guards attack them. The two make short work of them, but then Machiste challenges Morgan. The former friends wage a fierce battle, and Machiste draws first blood with a slash across Morgan's chest. Mariah pushes Morgan out of the way of the killing blow, and Machiste's axe gets stuck in the stone wall.

Before he can wrench it free, Morgan is back on his feet. A stroke of his sword removes Machiste's hand--and the influence of the axe. Machiste returns to his old self again. Morgan apologizes to his friend for what he had to do as Mariah uses a torch to cauterize the wound.

Later, a trusted Kiroan guardsman stands at the mouth of a volcano poised to destroy the axe. As soon as he removes it from the case that holds it, he becomes possessed by the weapon, and strides away purposefully from the volcano rim.

Things to Notice:

• Mariah's chained up on the cover, but not in the issue.
• One of the ruffians attacking Mariah looks kind of like Conan.
• The fashion-forward gals at the Kiro public baths give Mariah the 70s comic raccoon-eye make-up (last seen in First Issue Special #8), and Farah Fawcett hair.
• The temporal weirdness of Skartaris can serve the purposes of story.
• As noted bfore, like a lot of pulp heroes, Morgan is easily (and frequently) knocked out.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue recalls the Robert E. Howard Conan story "The Devil in Iron," first in published Weird Tales in August 1934. The plots of the two stories share nothing in common, however.

"Kiro" may come from Cairo (from the Arabic al-Qāhira) the capital and largest city in Egypt. Another possibility is from KIRO, the designation of a radio and TV station in Seattle. Grell lives in Washington state, and moved Green Arrow to Seattle in the eighties, but I don't know whether he was acquainted with the area at the time he was working on Warlord, so the name may be a coincidence.

Damascus steel was used in sword-making in the Middle East between 1100-1700 AD. The swords produced were legendary for strength and sharpness. The exact technique used in the making of historical Damascus steel is uncertain, but Damascus steel used Wootz steel from India as a base, which is not what Mariah's rifle would be made of. What Morgan undoubtedly means with the use of the term (which is supported by the smith's description of his process on page 7) is a pattern-welding technique which can duplicate the appearance of Damascus steel. In this technique, layers of steel are combined with layers of a softer metal and folded over many times to remove impurities in the metal. By this folding a laminate is formed, and the resultant blade is more flexible for it, without sacrificing hardness.

Cursed weapons like Machiste's axe appear have a long pedigree in mythology, folklore, and literature. The Knight Balyn has a cursed sword in Le Morte D'Arthur, as does Svafrlami in the Poetic Edda. Morgan will get his own later in the series

Nonfiction for Your Appendix N

Fiction isn't the only place to find gaming inspiration.  Here are a few choice nonfiction titles pulled from the shelves of my library:

Icon, Legacy, and Testament by Frank Frazetta. Who doesn't like Frazetta? Monsters, warriors, and babes--Frazetta's paintings have the quintessential elements of pulp fantasy. Is there anyone else whose work touches comics, sword and sorcery, and various flavors of rock? The art of Frank Frazetta has given me a lot of gaming inspiration over the years. Back in the day, I had the idea of making a campaign world based on all the paintings in The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta Book Two (which was the only volume I had). Looking through these volumes, I sometimes think about that again.

The Pursuit of the Millenium by Norman Cohn. This is the most scholarly book on this list, but its fascinating. Cohn chronicles the various millenarianist cults in Western Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Religions in rpgs tend to be woefully bereft of the heresies, cults, and sectarian struggles that plagued the real world--which is unfortunate, because that's the kind of conflict that games could thrive on. Cohn offers up plenty of examples of cultic craziness to inspire your own.

The Magicians Companion by Bill Whitcomb. This is a really handy guide to a bunch of real world mystical traditions organized numerically, from unity up through--uh--91-ities? It's also got straight-forward overviews of mystic writing systems, alchemy, herbalism, and other stuff, and tops it all off with a cool glossary of mystical/occult terms. The presentation makes it really easy steal pieces and drop it into a game for some real world color. The elemental correspondence charts alone (planets, metals, directions, elemental kings, etc.) are probably worth it.

Things That Never Were by Matthew Rossi. This one is kind of "fictional nonfiction" or, as the introduction by Paul Di Filippo would have it, "speculative nonfiction." What Rossi does is write imaginative essays that do things like cast Doc Holliday as a Masonic Fisher King, speculate on the lost knowledge of Hypatia of Alexandria, and recast the Titanomachy as a generational battle between superhumans uplifted by alien nanotechnology. In other words, a lot of it reads like a game already. Every essay has something worth snatching, or at least will get the the creative juices following.

The Phantasmagoric Lantern of Kulu Tu

The exact number of these items in existence is unknown, but it's theorized to be less than seven. Tavern-tales attribute their creation to the infamous Kulu the Illusionist, but these devices are actually the products of an unknown--though no less malign--genius.

These devices appear like any other mundane example of the primitive slide-projectors known as magic lanterns, the only difference being there is no way to change the slide being projected. When activated by placing a candle inside, the device projects strange and unsettling images of distorted, ghost-like figures and beasts. The projected image is larger and more distinct when a magical light-source is used, like a hand of glory, for example.

The image projected is no static scene, but a glimpse of the Negative Material Plane. The longer the device is left on, the thinner the "skin" between worlds becomes until the beings, the phantoms, from that plane are able to enter the Prime Material. When seen in the wan light of the projector the phantoms are ghostly pale, but when they pass out of the projector's cone of light, they become deep, featureless shadow. Their touch drains living things, indeed their very presence can can cause the wilting of nearby plants.

When the phantoms first emerge into the Prime Material, they may be given the name of a single individual. This individual the phantoms will seek out and drain with their life-stealing touch until he is dead. The phantoms are able to travel at great speed, perhaps by traversing between points of mundane shadow, so distance is no obstacle, but it does take time for them to locate the individual (by what ever eldritch means they utilize) and this process seems to take longer for more distant targets.

If they are prevented from getting to the individual, they will continue to try to do so until they are destroyed, or they dissipate. Phantoms drawn forth by light from a normal candle or other mundane light-source can only hold coherent form for twenty-four hours in the Prime Material, and every moment spent in bright sunlight doubles the rate of dissipation. Phantoms drawn forth by a magical light-source in the lantern will last for a week, or perhaps more, depending on the potency of the magic used, but are still just as susceptible to bright sunlight.

The wise user never allows more than three phantoms to emerge before extinguishing the lantern. More than that number, and the phantoms become likely to act more willfully, killing the summoner and anyone else they find rather than heeding a command. If the lantern is left lit and unattended, phantoms will continue to emerge until the light-source burns itself out, and wander out into the world with undirected malevolence.

The lantern can be used to study the beings of the Negative Material Plane, but only if care is taken to limit the length of its usage so that no phantoms emerge.

A Page of Sages

"It is not well for men who come seeking sage counsel to cast fleers before them. Nevertheless, I am today in a merry humor and will give ear to your problem."

- Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, "Adept's Gambit" by Fritz Leiber

Need a translation of some hieroglyphs from a long-dead culture? Or maybe an antidote for an exotic drug? Or perhaps you need a way to defeat an old and powerful dragon?  Well, here are a handful of scholars and experts of various stripes from the world were is found continent of Arn who might be able to lend a hand...

Mnaurmon Lloigor: Thystaran scholar and historian, perhaps the greatest of the age. Mnarmonos Liguros (as he's known in his native tongue) operates out the Museum of Thystara established by Emperor Ahzuran. Mnaurmon appears as the stereotypical sage--long white hair and beard with a slightly disheveled appearance, bespeaking a lack of concern with such things. He has something of a temper and doesn't suffer fools well, but reserves a great deal of charm for women. In fact, Mnaurmon has a well-developed appreciation for feminine beauty, and is almost always accompanied by a well-endowed famula who acts as his scribe. Mnaurmon is sought for his knowledge of history, particularly in regard to the rites of Ascension, and the ruins left by the mysterious Dungeon-Builders. Given his access to ancient Thystaran scrolls, he has a good chance of locating information even if he doesn't have it immediately at hand.

Athas the Strong: is a powerfully built Thystaran man who looks more like a wrestler or gladiator than a sage. Dressed only in simple clothes and carrying few possessions, Athas wanders the world striving to learn the secrets of unifying mind and body, and developing the twain to their highest potential. It is said that Athas has already advanced those arts to an amazing degree, and achieved superhuman abilities. Tales (no doubt exaggerated) say that he has the strength of a giant, and that his skin can turn a blade. Athas teaches unarmed martial arts, emphasizing the mind-expanding aspects of their practice rather than violence--though he is certainly unafraid to use violence if the need arises. Beyond teaching fighting techniques, Athas is sought out for his almost mystical ability to discern critical weaknesses in any opponent, even those only susceptible to magic, otherwise.

Gwynhumara Star-of-Dusk: a striking, dark-haired, tattooed, Kael woman, beginning to approach middle age. Known as a wise-woman, among the tribes in Northern Arn and beyond, for her knowledge of monstrous creatures and how they can be hunted and defeated. The abandoned nests of dragons, the spoor of bulette, even the scat of the dread tarrasque, are arcana she has mastered. Gwynhumara is unlikely to leave the lands of her tribe, but those who make the effort to find her may gain the benefit of her wisdom if they bring a gift and show the proper respect. The more audacious the hunt, the more likely she is to give aid.

Tuvo brek Amblesh: Magister of the Library-University of Tharkad-Keln. Amblesh is a gnome--which means, in this case one, of the halflings native to the great library. He as a magister of the third-circle and prelector superior on the botanical and alchemical sciences, but--as the glyphs of his curriculum vitae on his giethi-stick suggest--he's highly knowledgeable on many topics. Amblesh is what one might call an "action scholar"--in the sense that, despite he's advancing age, he insists on doing fieldwork and frequently gets into trouble--not in the sense of being particularly adept at handling trouble. Luckily, he has a bodyguard,the amazon Zura Kai, to protect him when this occurs.

Amaranthine: Though she appears youthful, as with all elves, her appearance is deceiving--she is older than Thystaran habitation in Arn, at least. The aethyr woman who has called herself "Amaranthine" for the past few centuries, typically dresses in simple, but elegant robes of shifting-image, elvish eidolon-silk. She rarely ventures abroad, not even for the conclaves which gather most of her kind.  She prefers to spend her time on her small island in the middle of a tranquil lake in the Chailéadhain Highlands of Arn. Amaranthine is something of an oracle, but she prefers to deal in knowledge of the past as trying to make since of the tangled skein of futurity gives her a headache. Her most common service is to recall for a supplicant something they have forgotten--even something they have been made to forget by magic, or have lost through reincarnation. She also has a great knowledge of music, history, and--surprising given her isolation--current gossip of the elven community, though she is seldom sought out for these purposes.

Comic Book Swordswomen of the Seventies

"Sword-swinging fantasy protagonist" has generally been a male gig. The pulps gave us a number of Sword & Sorcery heroes of renown, but Jirel of Joiry, CL Moore's "gal Conan," is the only female heroine of note from the era--Howard's Dark Agnes being a "historical" adventuress. It wasn't until the Sword & Sorcery revival of the late seventies-early eighties that a more women joined the fray.

Despite the smaller number of sword and sorcery heroes in comics, there's a much larger percentage of swordswomen. This can probably be attributed to the visual nature of comics--and the inherent appeal of scantily-clad warrior ladies to a predominantly male audience. Despite that, the beauteous women warriors of comics are, for the most part, more obscure than their male counterparts. It's time they got their due, starting with the trailblazers of the 1970s.

The first swordswoman of the seventies didn't have to deal with sorcery, but she did exist in a post-apocalyptic-fantasy setting, so I'm going to give her a nod. Lyra of the Femizons is from the pages of Savage Tales (vol. 1) #1 (1971) in a story called "Fury of the Femizons." This might be Stan Lee's update on William Moulton Marston's psychosexually underpinned Wonder Woman concept, or a "cautionary tale" of feminism gone wild (not a pay per view title, by the way) would lead to--or, an idea he scrawled on a napkin at a local deli to fill pages.

Lyra's 23rd Century is essentially reverse Gor, or The Planet of the Apes if you replace "apes" with "women." Lyra is the toughest gladiatrix around, defeating (and killing) the weak for the "vicious voluptuaries" of Queen Vega's court. That's until she meets hunky slave Mogon and agrees to help him with his evolutionary aims, for the sake of love. It all ends tragically, of course--well, mostly for Mogon. Lyra is forced to kill him to "prove" her loyalty to Vega. But she feels really bad about it and realizes, "when a man is but a slave--it is the women who live in bondage." Or something.

Our next swordsman is a little less obscure. Red Sonja, the so-called She-Devil with a Sword, debuted in 1973 in Conan the Barbarian #23. Sonja was Roy Thomas' Hyborian Age adaption of Sonya of Rogatino in his Conan-ified interpretation of Robert E. Howard's historical actioner "The Shadow of the Vulture." Thomas' Sonja got magical puissance with a blade from a goddess, along with geas that she would never know (in the Biblical sense) a man until he had defeated her in fair combat. After her Conan appearances, she got a famous chain-mail bikini from artist Esteban Maroto, and a lot of further appearances, including a succession of three self-titled series.

Marvel's loss of the Howard licenses couldn't sheathe Sonja's sword. She came back, and so did her chain-mail outfit so beloved by artists and fans. After a couple of one shots at other companies, Dynamite Entertainment picked up the character in 1999, and she's still going strong in an ongoing series and a succession of limiteds.

Just as Red Sonja was beginning to climb in popularity, DC unleashed their own swordswoman. Ravenhaired Starfire got her own title from the beginning, debuting in 1976. The creation of David Michilenie and Mike Vosburg, Starfire swung her sword for her world’s freedom from the alien Mygorg and Yorg for 8 issues. Like Lyra, she had a dead love for motivation, and like Red Sonja, she was always spurning the advances of other men.

The next two heroines chronologically have a connection to Red Sonja. The first, and the one to appear in the seventies, was Ghita of Alizarr. Frank Thorne took over the pencilling chores for Red Sonja in Marvel Feature #2 (Jan. 1976) and continued through the eleventh issue of her first self-titled series. Thorne spent most of the seventies getting photographed with attractive women--mostly by dressing up like a wizard and judging Red Sonja lookalike contests at conventions:

It's fair to say that ending his tour on Red Sonja didn't end his interest in buxom warrior women, so he created his own. In Warren's futuristic 1984 #7 (1978), the Red Sonja-reminiscent, but blonde-tressed, Ghita of Alizarr debuted. Freedom from Comics Code restrictions, freed Ghita from her clothes--frequently--and she proved not at all encumbered by any Sonja-esque restrictions on whom she might have sex with--or how often.

Ghita appears in three issues of 1984, and also in several collections where Thorne gets to play Thenef the Wizard in the cover photographs.

And here our heroines ride forth out of the seventies.  Next week, I'll take a look at swordswomen in the eighties and beyond.

Getting in Alignment

Quite a lot has been written on the internet and in print about alignment. I'm not particularly interested in wading in to one of those "why or why not" debates here--I don't think there's a definitive answer to "how it works" or "what it means." Still, in my current game I wanted to work with the elements that (to me) seemed quintessentially D&D (particularly quintessentially AD&D) and alignment was one of those. I also wanted a game world that to some degree "rationalized" those quintessential elements. In other words, I didn't want some of the situations that alignment can engender that work against the "feel" of the inspirations found in my personal Appendix N.

To that end, I set out my basic parameters. Alignment is a real, fundamental force in the multiverse. It is tied up in the cosmology of the Great Wheel of Existence. Gods and Ascended beings are fair "strongly aligned" to these planes and their intrinsic alignment forces, but regular mortals don't really have alignment per se.

I really like what Professor Barker has to say in The Tekumel Source Book: "The Gods express not so much human objectives as their own viewpoints of existence and the eventual destiny of the cosmos."

In other words, alignment isn't about human ethics, but instead about teams in a cosmic game. You choose a god of a particular alignment, you choose a side--but you get to choose how fervently you support your team. This allows a human world with shades of gray rather than absolutes, which not only looks more like the "real world," but more importantly looks like the worlds of Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Kane, and most of the other pulp fantasy icons. This also explains how, for the most part, human societies can exist with a mixture of servants of different alignments side by side without constant holy war.

That all works, but AD&D has some beings which are more pro- or anti-social that others. Demons and devils are mostly antagonists for players--even evil ones. I think that the alignments are tangentially related to certain human moral or ethical concerns, even if that's not their primary focus. My conception of what those concerns are was influenced by a comment on a blog I read a couple of years ago, which I haven't been able to relocate, and so I can't properly credit. The unknown commenter mentioned the Moral Foundations Theory as a good model for what alignments "mean"--but didn't elaborate. A visit to Jonathan Haidt's website on Moral Foundations Theory made me think the commenter had a point.

In brief, the theory breaks human morality into five universal themes/concerns (and they're looking at a sixth). These are:

1. Harm/Care - underlies virtues of kindness, and nuturance.
2. Fairness/Reciprocity - underlies the virtue of justice, among others.
3. Ingroup/Loyalty - underlies patriotism, among other virtues.
4. Authority/Respect - underlies deference to authority, and respect for tradition.
5. Purity/Sanctity - underlies the ideals of avoidance of physical and mental contamination.

 So, in no doubt an application of the theory its proponents never though of, these traits can be mapped to the orthogonal dualities of the AD&D alignment system. Good is concerned with Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, and Ingroup/Loyalty, while Evil is cruel, injustice, and sociopathic. Law is concerned with Authority/Respect and Purity/Sanctity, while Chaos is anti-authority, and profane. Neutral on either axis would be "no opinion" on the issue in question.

 Not that these values are what the alignments "mean" or completely represent in a cosmic sense, but like the story of the blind men and the elephant, these are the features humans can recognize and grasp.

So that's alignment in my current campaign. For the players it doesn't much influence things, as it isn't something characters "have." But it underlies how the world works, and it's given me some interesting perspectives on the natures of supernatural beings that do have alignments by allowing me to look at them in terms of the five foundations.

So Far So Good

I just recently got a Kindle, and I'm eager to try out my first ebook. First, though I want to get through my stack of already purchased physical books. Which might take a little while.

I'm happy to report, though, that so far this year I've read several good books in the fantasy genre. Here they are, in the order I read them:

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington. This is the only singleton fantasy of my reads so far this year, which is a testament of the difficulty in finding such an elusive beast. Bullington's is a picaresque historical fantasy about two dimwitted, and thoroughly reprehensible graverobber brothers who manage to defeat a number of demons. There's a bit of horror here, a generous portion of humor (a lot of it dark), and quite a bit of violence.  There are a lot of great incidents, though my favorite would come down to the surreal horror (and humor) of the appearance of a naked, possessed man astride a demonic pig, and the ironic, knife-twist of the witch's grim fairy tale.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. The second in his Gentlemen Bastards series. I didn't want to like the first book in this series, party because I find skepticism about a lot of recent fantasy a good hedge against disappoint, and partly because the title bugged me with its alliterativeness (The Lies of Locke Lamora)--its just a thing I have--but against my will, I liked it quite a bit. This one again has confidence men in a fantasy stand-in for medieval Italy going after a big score, but it also has pirates. A lot of nice, light-but-flavorful wordbuilding, clever dialogue, and intricate capers.

The Blade Itself  by Joe Abercrombie. The first novel in the First Law Trilogy. It reminds me a little bit of the work of David Gemmell--and that's good. Abercrombie's got grittiness, political intrigue, and an eclectic group of flawed characters gathered by a wizard to save the world. And cannibals. Or more precisely, people who gain magical power by cannibalism. I'm looking forward to Book Two.