Degrees of Separation and Perspective

Not only have I never played with anyone that had read all of the famous Appendix N, but in my gaming history spanning over twenty-five years, I've played with very few who were particularly avid readers of fantasy, period. In my high school gaming group, a couple of the guys read some of the Gord books and other early D&D fiction, and maybe one of them read some Raymond Feist stuff. In my current gaming group, one of the guys is a big Tolkien fan, and another read a bit of fantasy in his youth including Conan and Elric, though that was years ago. The third guy I don't think has read any fantasy--unless maybe the Harry Potter series.

Anyway, maybe my experiences are atypical, but if the people I've played with are in any way representative, I was suspect most gamers don't come to rpgs with a strong background or even particularly strong interest in fantasy literature of any sort, much less many of the more obscure writers in the Appendix. Perhaps this is due to changing entertainment patterns compared to Gygax's day--certainly studies show that reading in general has decreased in every age group compared to 30 years ago, but I've noticed the phenomena before that trend.

So what gets gamers into gaming? Well mostly their friends, I'd guess. But why fantasy gaming, then? I assume this is tradition--"rpg" has mostly meant "D&D" over the years, so people had little choice. Many, perhaps most, peoples touchstones for how to conceptualize fantasy worlds and characters, then, has come largely from the game itself.

I should add here that I'm not placing any value judgement on this. There's no "wrong way" in my mind for people to enjoy rpgs, or to get into gaming, nor is there any purity test for inspirations.

But I find it interesting--particularly this: Do player's who've never read a fantasy novel, but came to tabletop rpgs from say, computer games, have different expectations or approaches to gaming, than those weened on Howard, Moorcock, and Leiber? How about those who got there from He-Man cartoons, or BOC albums, or those whose sole source of knowledge for fantasy is what they gleaned from the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual?

My gut reaction is that the conventions and culture of the game are the great leveller here, but I wonder what others have observed in this regard.

Dust to Dust

"The nightmare is deepest during the storms. But on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions. It is becoming Real."

- Avis D. Carlson

The past decade has seen the Western prairies between the cities of the Steel League and the the Stoney Mountains become choked by dust. Over-farming and relentless drought left the topsoil with nothing to hold it in place, and so it blows across the land in large, dark clouds, giving the area its nickname, the Dustlands. The blighted land has given rise to twisted and wrathful elementals--malign spirits in the form of dust devils, and even cyclones. They crisscross the land, warring with each other, the strong consuming the weak and adding the substance of the vanquished to their own, growing larger in the process.

The big storms terrorize the isolated dirt-farmers and small communities that remain. They demand tribute or sacrifices, and sometimes even worship, in the manner of ancient gods. Would-be adventurers, and often opportunistic grifters, roam the Dustlands offering to free the oppressed folk from the yolk of the tornado tyrants. Sometimes these champions meet their deaths in the howling winds that scour flesh and fill lungs.  When they succeed, the farmer-folk often just exchange one overlord for another.

Even the cyclone bosses go to ground when the black blizzards come. These are elementals, too, but tainted. The thaumaturgic horrors unleashed in the Great War, had an unforseen backlash.  The primal elements were partially corrupted by entropic energies. The birth-trauma of the creation of these black-dust elementals has driven them hopelessly insane and caused them to lose all power of reason. They live only to destroy, descending on living things and blinding, then suffocating them--but only after a period of terror. Their energies being inherently unstable, they don't survive long on this plane--usually only a matter of hours, at most days--but that's more than long enough to bring death to the unwary.

After the black blizzard itself dissipates, their evil lives on in the form of black-dust "undead." There is a 20 percent chance that the suffocation of a person by by the storm will cause a remnant of the black-dust elemental's substance to absorb a portion of dying person's soul, and become a black-dust ghost, which is essentially a small elemental that believes itself to be the spirit of the person slain. [Similar to a air elemental, but only HD 4. They also have the knowledge, skills, and personality of the person emulated, albeit with distorted by anger at the living. They are not actually undead, and so have no undead traits.]

For those the storms don't kill immediately, but nevertheless succumb to the choking dust, there is the risk (30% chance) that they will become black-dust zombies. These unfortunates are indeed dead, but their bodies are animated by the particulate malevolence that's spread through them. They shamble across the Dustlands with a hunger that can never be satiated. But they try--with the flesh of the living. [Use the stats for zombies, though the bite of a black-dust zombie is contagious--anyone who dies of bites from a black-dust zombie, but isn't consumed, will become one. As they aren't really undead, they don't have the usual vulnerabilities and can't be turned.]

Real Dungeons, American Style: Coral Castle

A mysterious stranger arrives in town. Only working at night, and with no apparent help, he constructs a structure of megalithic stones. The stones are often carved in odd designs, some perhaps with arcane significance. When asked how he moved and worked the stones, the stranger only made veiled references to ancient secrets. The construction lasts nearly thirty years, until the stranger succumbs to a wasting sickness.

Sounds like the background fluff for an adventure, doesn't it?  But it happens to be true. While not technically a dungeon, Coral Castle has enough mystery to be the inspiration for a interesting game adventure locale.

Edward Leeskalnin (1887-1951) was a Latvian emigrant who arrived in south Florida in 1919. He purchased a small parcel of land, and spent the next 28 years building a structure of megalithic stones (mostly limestone formed from coral) in homage to his "Sweet Sixteen." How he cut and placed the 1000 tons of stones that make up the structure is mystery. He never let anyone watch him work (he supposedly did much of the work at night, by lantern light), and never had any help or used any heavy machinery that was seen. This secrecy has, of course, allowed a lot of speculation about his methods over the years. Leedskalnin supposedly told people that he "understood the laws of weight and leverage well", and more enigmatically, that he had discovered "the secrets of the pyramids." He also supposedly spoke of using a "perpetual motion holder."

Wikipedia relates the story that a few teenagers reported spying on Leedskalnin and seeing him make blocks of coral to move like "hydrogen balloons." The fact that Leedskalnin published pamphlets on his own theories on magnetism and electricity have helped fuel the wild-eyed speculation. Still, photos exist of Leedskalnin on the work-site with his tools--which are tripods and block and tackle. Of course, maybe that was just to throw people off...

However he did it, Coral Castle is an impressive accomplishment. Almost all the stones are single pieces weighing about 14 tons each. There's a revolving stone door so well balanced that a child can make it turn (or at least could--it stopped working in 1986 and had to be repaired, and now doesn't turn as well) that is made of a 8.2 ton rock. Wikipedia lists its other features:

"...a two-story castle tower that served as Leedskalnin's living quarters, walls consisting entirely of 8-foot high pieces of stone, an accurate sundial, a Polaris telescope, an obelisk, a barbecue, a water well, a fountain, celestial stars and planets, and numerous pieces of furniture. The furniture pieces included are a heart-shaped table, a table in the shape of Florida, twenty-five rocking chairs, chairs resembling crescent moons, a bathtub, beds and a royal throne."

In a game setting, the strange stone structure could be the remains of an ancient pre-human culture, or a gate built by a wizard to another world, or the only visible part of a Brigadoon-like city that only appears in this dimension every so many years. Of course, in a pulp setting, one could use the real coral castle for adventure fodder--and perhaps have a run in with its real-life mysterious and reclusive wizard.

See Rock City...If You Dare!

You might rightly ask yourself: surely Trey isn't seriously going to suggest that Lookout Mt., Georgia's kitschy, but slightly trippy, roadside attraction might have an analog in the world of the City (and perhaps elsewhere) that could be an adventure local?

Well, not seriously. At least, not completely seriously...

There are stories from the Southern end of the Smaragdines about a strange place atop a mountain inhabited by extraplanar beings. It's become something of a legend across the rural South. Many barns or abandoned shacks along dusty roads and lonely highways are adorned with cryptic references to its wonders, or exhortations to "see the rock city."

The Natives of the land told stories of this place, and made visits to pay superstitious homage. Early explorers from Ealderde described a natural fortress of rock, with its components arranged so as to form the semblance "streets" and "alleyways"--and then there were oblique references to reclusive inhabitants. By the time the area had been well-settled, stories began to circulate of disappearances, and strange lights and music in the city of rock. Some Old World immigrants began to whisper about entrances to Fairyland.

Scientific thaumaturgical inquiry toward the end of the last century appears to have solved the mystery. In the heart of the rock city, reached only after passing through a maze of unusual rock formations, is a cave. The cave is the domain of clan of ultraterrestrial entities called gnomes.

Gnomes are elementals of earth. On the surface, they often appear as statues, as their experience of time isn't ours, and they sometimes stand immobile for long periods of time before springing to sudden action. They travel from the subterranean depths via veins of minerals. Their purposes are often inscrutable. In the rock city, they appear to be attempting art.

The gomes look like statues of bearded little men, with often comical expressions, and have shaped some of their substance to look like human clothing--brightly color through the expression of mineral pigments. This is not unusual gnomic behavior. What is, is that in the rock city, that have turned grottoes in their cave complex into dioramas, glowing with eerie, otherworldly light. These dioramas are scenes from Old World fairytales and nursery rhymes. The gnomes, it seems, have some knowledge of their audience.

It's for these strange and whimsical dioramas that people visit the rock city. But before making the trip yourself, consider where the non-gnomish statues in the dioramas come from. Some experts hold these are gnomes, just assuming different forms. Others point to the unusually high numbers of disappearances in the area and suggest the the gnomes may sometimes need human stock for their quaint designs.

Magic Men

As a companion to Tuesday's post, I wanted to give a couple of examples of magic-using character concepts from the world of the City.

First though, a word about magic in general. The divide in this world is not so much cleric vs. magic-user (though, a similar divide does exist, in a fashion) but thaumaturgy vs. mysticism. Thaumaturgy is the applied science of magic, the exploitation of forces and principles as real as physics or chemistry are in our world. There are many competing models as to the "hows" and "whys" of magic, but whatever their differences, they all typically involve spells/formulae, magical aides/tools, and experimentation. Mysticism, on the other hand, is less rational and more intuitive. It relies on idiosyncratic (or even lack of) explanations. It's tools are things like meditation, physical conditioning, and/or use of drugs to create altered states of consciousness to achieve sudden insight.

With that in mind, here are two men of magic from the streets of the City:

Jim Nightshade
Nightshade's got a one-room office with "Nightshade Investigations" stencilled on the door. He solves problems.  Particular sorts of problems.  Kinds the cops won't.

He used to be a cop himself, but that was before the War. Then he had uniform and a badge. Now he's got trouble sleeping nights--and magic. He used to think he was just lucky, but luck had nothing to do with it. The ageless man that visited him in that hospital overseas clued him in, and gave him a book--a grimoire--the first of many.

The upside of insomnia is a guy's got a lot of time to read.

Sikandar the Sorcerer

The so-called "Gentleman Mentalist" is a highly-paid performer and celebrity exposer of criminal mages. He dates starlets and popular songbirds, and appears in advertisements for pomade, cigarettes ("Djinn Cigarettes--your wish for flavor is granted!") and men's shirts.

This public persona doesn't tell the whole story. His real name is Alisander Welleran and, despite his image, he's taken an oath before the Nine Unknown Sages of Agarthala to defend this plane against the forces of evil. Time after time, he's put the mystic powers he mastered in Agharthala to this purpose--and if he can increase his celebrity thereby, so much the better. He's thwarted Anarchists trying to poison the City's water supply with flesh-warping alchemicals, and bested a murderous shade striving to re-enact its pre-death killing spree, among other exploits. And he's always looked good doing it.

Warlord Wednesday: Who's Who

Work obligations got me home late, so no issue review this week, but I thought I'd present the Warlord art from Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. The Who's Who began publication in March 1985, and finished in April 1987.  It featured files of most of the major Warlord characters, most with art by Mike Grell.  Skarataris also got a two spread with a map.

Here are the pictures accompanying the entries of the characters that have appeared in my review so far.  All of them are by Grell, except Mariah, who was drawn by Ron Randall--a post-Grell artist on the series.

Here's Travis Morgan, the Warlord:

His wife, Tara:

Morgan's old Gladiator buddy, and king of Kiro, Machiste:

Russian archeologist and fencing champ, Mariah Romanova:

Two Tough Guys

Or actually, one tough guy and one tough gal.

I've written quite a bit about the City and its world, but as my friend Jim pointed out to me the other day, I've yet to introduce any adventurers from the setting. Let me rectify that today by presenting two Fighter-type characters/ personalities from City's world:

Samael T. Hazard
A former Freedonian Ranger who hunted bankrobbers, banditos, and monsters along the Southwestern border, before "retiring" to the City to open a speakeasy. Going into business didn't mean Hazard had to put down his guns--he just meant he went freelance. He and his boys rescued the debutante daughters of the old money from ritual sacrifice by the sinister sorcerer, Wu Fang, and busted up a plot to hold the City for ransom with a threat to release War-surplus cloudkill in the subway. He helped clear the hobogoblin jungles in the Steel League, and stopped the Reds from replacing City ealdormen with dopplegangers. He even tangled with the Wurm at one point, but that one even he couldn't win. He made it out with his life, but left some good men underground.

Hazard eventually ran for public office, but didn't win, and went back to his bar in defeat. Still, taking out a Hell Syndicate Hit-Fiend during a live radio broadcast has got count as some sort of victory.

Eliza Gunn
Nineteen years-old, and already making her own way for several years in the bleakness of the Dustlands. Gunn is an ace mechanic, and handy in a scrap. She's been with a gang of adventures for a couple of years, defending refugees and isolated towns from road agents, black-dust zombies, and violent cyclone bosses looking to expand their territory. Between all this "do-gooding" they raid old Native mounds for treasure--mostly magical materials, but a little gold and silver, too.  There are trains to be guarded, too--a few days riding the rails from Lake City to the Stoneys, looking out for thunderbirds and as always, malevolent elemental storms.

Mostly sullen and not much for conversation, Gunn is given to almost berserker rages when she gets riled. Her favorite weapon is an over-sized wrench (rumored to be imbued with magic by a Native shaman--or maybe forged from adamantine scavenged from the sword of an ancient, Old World king, stories differ) that's cracked more than one skull of a would-be hardcase who's underestimated her.