Not Heroes

The grizzled veteran looked up from the finger he had been diligently sawing at with his knife.

“Huh?”

“I says,” his small friend repeats, not taking his eyes from the bugbear’s finger—and more importantly the ring on it—”it must be magical, else why’s it so damn hard to remove?”

“Not you.  Him.” The veterans gestures to me with the knife, and the smaller man finally notices.

“Oh! You’re the scribe, ain’t ya?”

I nod.

“Thought Goan was minding you.”

“He was. He died yesterday.” I think back to the unfortunate, nervous Goan. He had eyes that had darted around like spooked birds. They weren't vigilant enough, apparently, to avoid the dripping slime that burned a hole straight through him. It had taken him longer to die than I would have thought, but die he did despite the cleric’s efforts.

“Ah,” the veteran says with a tone that refuses to commit to either sympathy or disinterest. The smaller man just nods, and seems a bit embarassed.

“I’m looking for the captain.”

The veteran points with a thumb, slick and glistening with what must be bugbear ichor. “Down that passage. He’s at the door with the mage.”

I head down the rough-hewn passage, stepping around more bugbear carcasses, leaving the adventurers to their work.

The two did eventually succeed in getting the ring. The small man (his name was Orven) was right: it was magical. It allowed the wearer to breath underwater--which saved Orven from a judicial drowning in Nharm, but helped him not at all when months later someone drowned him in a cask of cheap wine and cut the ring from his hand.

Warlord Wednesday: Back-Up from Atlantis

Here's another look at one of Warlord's backup features--the one running in the issues I've been reviewing in recent weeks:

ARION, LORD OF ATLANTIS

First Appearance: Warlord #55 (1982)
Featured as Back-up: Warlord #55-62
Next Seen: Arion, Lord of Atlantis #1 (November 1982)
His Story: Arion is the Grand Mage to the King of Atlantis and Atlantis' defender against the encroaching ice age and the forces of Chaos--including his brother, Garn Daanuth. Arion was the creation of writer Paul Kupperberg and artist Jan Duursema.  It's a more "high fantasy" series than the most of comic's fantasy offerings that tend to be in a Sword & Sorcery mode.  The series lasted 35 issues and Arion made contemporaneous appearances in Crisis on Infinite Earths.  After 1985, Arion didn't appear again until 1991's Books of Magic vol. 1 #1, which was followed by a six issue limited series Arion the Immortal.
How He's Like the Warlord: He's got ties to Atlantis and a swordswoman consort.  He's also resembles Jennifer Morgan, the Warlord's daughter, with his magical prowess and flowing locks.

Double Your Fun

One of the great things about superhero role-playing games is that you can do things that would never be done in comics. If you want Spider-man to grow old and retire, you can do it. If you want Batman to take on a young blind kid named Matt Murdock as the new Robin, you can do it. Any number of cross company (or even cross-media) crossovers you can do it.

Unfortunately, other than a few cross-company crossovers, there aren’t too many comic images to inspire the imagination in that regard. Or at least there weren't.

The blog Marvel Two-in-One...The Lost Issues! (previously Brave and the Bold...The Lost Issues!) features covers than never were for those two famous team-up titles. Here’s some examples:

So head over and check 'em out!

Troll Hunter

I saw the Norwegian film Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren) this weekend--which was timely given all the recent blogosphere discussion related to 0-level characters and the heroicness (or nonheroicness) of adventurers. The film is a mokumentary supposedly made by a group of students setting out to do an exposé on a bear poacher, but instead recording their adventures with a lone troll hunter sanctioned by a secret Norwegian government agency.

Along the way we learn a bit about the naturalism of trolls. There are multiple varieties with different habits, but they all have a weakness to sunlight (exploited through the use of UV radiation) and they can smell Christians (though not Muslims, apparently). We also see the lengths the government goes to hide the knowledge of trolls' existence from the general populace, which provides much of the film’s humor.

Hans, the troll hunter, is wearily professional and matter-of-fact about his job--and occasionally regretful of his past actions. The students are sometimes fascinated (perhaps even exhilirated) by the hidden world they’re discovering--and sometimes scared out of their minds. Everybody does a good bit or running and more than a little hiding. It strikes me as a nice approach for the portrayal of adventurers in any era.

The film is obviously low budget, but the digital effects are surprisingly effective. It shows what SyFy originals could do if they had more effort put into their scripts. There’s a lot of riding around in the Norwegian countryside--it isn’t th fastest moving film--but I think that just lends it more verisimilitude.

If you get a chance, check it out (I saw it on HDNet movies and it's coming to blu-ray next week). It’s an inventive premise, and a nice mixture of humor and thriller.

Images from the Strange New World

The Academy Obscura convenes only rarely but always to punish those who have made the unknown known. What mysteries they hold sacred, what secrets inviolate, who can say? It’s rumored their punishment involves forever removing the certainty of the transgressor's existence, leaving them forever trapped between life and death, being and nonbeing.

You can even get the drop on a shadow assassin--if you’re packing the right ammunition.  Bullets made from paraffin mixed with used candle wax (with right incantation applied when it was burning) do the job.

Such is the power of the brain invader that Colonel Gordon’s men didn’t notice his body was being ridden by one of the creatures until it was far too late.  The corpses of his men were found in a mass grave; there was, of course, nothing left of the Colonel's skull.

"Charley Rictus is a trusted lieutenant and enforcer for the Malbolge family. He's been killed and raised at least nine times on record: multiple shootings, stabbings, a couple of poisonings, an emasculation, and one total dismemberment. Now it looks like he wants to cut a deal. Maybe he wants to retire on a beach somewhere and rot in peace, or maybe he thinks he can break his Faustian pact and save his soul from eternal damnation. I don't know and I don't care. I just need him at the courthouse--with the important parts intact."

Dragged from the River

A lot of unusual things get pulled out of the Eldritch and Wyrd Rivers that run through the City and flank Empire Island. Here are a few examples (1d12):

1. A crate packed with soggy straw and 1-4 large blue-gray eggs.
2. A chained box containing a frog. The frog will dance belt out vaudeville songs--but only when just one person is present.
3. A doll crudely made but nevertheless bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of the PCs.
4. A mummified creature:

5. A metal hand that, when placed on a hard surface and unrestricted, will scuttle and orient itself to point west.
6. A metal box resembling a hat box, difficult to open due to a magic lock. In darkness, a glow emanates from its seams. Particularly sensitive individuals my hear soft moans periodically from sinide.
7. An undead mermaid bearing a zombie contagion.
8. A shabby coat--which is utterly dry, and in fact, can never be made wet.
9. A case of bootleg whiskey an imbiber will be able to perceive the astral plane for 1-2 hours, and then be sick for 2-8 more on a failed save.
10. A figurine of snake-like creature with human arms. Anyone who touches it will have a nightmare about a basalt ziggurat beneath a blood-red sun in some distant jungle.
11. A book of matches from "The Ostensible Cat" night-club.
12. A wax phonograph cylinder containing a third of a potent magical incantation.

Two Tough Characters from the City

In gearing up for my game in the City, I thought I’d stat up a few characters for my player’s to have as examples. Here, (in my modified version of Stuart Robertson’s Weird West) are a couple of Tough Guys (the City’s version of Fighters):

“Salty” Sam Depape
Old sailor as at home in a South Seas squall as he is in a Wharf Street ginhouse brawl.

Path: Tough Guy
Level: 5

Fighting 5 “I always out-roughs ‘em”
Toughness (Grit) 5 “one tough gazookus”
Special (Magic) 1 “I gots a secret weppin”
Knack (Skill) 2 “old sea-hand”

Weapons:
Fists d2

Special Abilities:
koboloba leaf: Fighting +2, Toughness +1 after consumption. Unarmed attacks use d6. Lasts until end of fight.  Once a day.

Eliza Gunn
Tough young gal from the Dustlands.

Path: Tough Guy
Level: 4

Fighting 4 “good in a scrap”
Toughness 4 “girl’s tougher than she looks”
Special 0
Knack 3 “ace mechanic”

Weapons:
magic over-sized wrench: d6 damage. Can harm magical creatures that couldn’t otherwise be harmed. Unbreakable.