Gargoyles, Guns, and Money

Last night, "Team Victory" made it to the end of the trail and brought a murderer to brutal, shotgun-blast justice--and made themselves a tidy some in the process.

They confronted Viviane Vandemaur about the murder of her husband over a continental breakfast served in her penthouse suite on the Upper Eldside. She was too tough an egg to crack easy, so they forced her into the pocket dimension bolthole accessible through the palimpsest they stole.

There, she bared her claws and went on the attack.  It took several shotgun blasts and sword cane stabs, but she finally fled through one of the openings in the floor to--well, whatever strange dimension was outside the cube.  Even there she tried to crawl across the outside surface and escape, but Boris was dogged, and Ivanka still had shells.

The thing that called itself Viviane Vandemaur eventually went flying off into otherspace.

Her gargloyle mook demanded the orb that kept him at bay in return for leaving them alone and--uncharacteristically trusting--the guys handed it over, after extracting a promise from the gargoyle to do them a solid at some point in the future.

That done, the gang headed over to Urania Vandemaur’s mansion to collect the bounty on her son’s murderer. They were surprised to find Indrid Bliss there with her.  Under the sharp eye of Urania, and with the other orb to exchange, Indrid filled in some of the missing pieces of the puzzle:  The original Viviane was the cigarette girl in the picture with John Vandemaur, whose identity and likeness his partner (the Viviane they all knew) stole.  Then, she got greedy and tried to steal Vandemaur’s identity (and his fortune) and cut Bliss out all together.  Bliss claimed to have botched the ritual that would have allowed her to steal Vandemaur's identity sufficiently to fool most magics, but she got the jump on him and put him in the coffin.

Bliss wanted the alien glass sphere back in return for this information, and Creskin (against his better judgement) was coaxed into giving it to him by Urania.  Bliss left, and no one was sorry to see him go.

The guys then collected their substantial payment, and left the games of the rich and sorcerous behind--for the moment.

Warlord Wednesday: Devil's Wings

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...

"Devil's Wings"

Warlord #93 (May 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art Ron Randall.

Synopsis: In the windswept Bloodrock Mountains, Old Gris, a grizzled scout for the Husklaar Tribe, sees Lord Sabretooth leading a New Atlantean army through a pass that will take them to the gates of Shamballah.  Old Gris urges his pony to a gallop…

Meanwhile, in the Shamballan camp Morgan spars with one of his troops while Tara looks on in disapproval. She thinks a warlord’s time would be put to better use elsewhere. 

Beneath Fire Mountain, Jennifer’s still “studying” the Evil One’s gem. She asks Ashir to keep an eye on Tinder, as he may not yet be completely free of the gem’s influence. When Ashir asks why she doesn't just destroy it Jennifer has a “Gollum moment” and clutches the gem tightly to her chest. She recovers and says that she hopes to find a way to control the gems power. Ashir leaves with a worried look on his face.

Old Gris arrives at Warlord’s camp. “Tempering his salty language only slightly in deference to the Queen” he tells her war council what he saw:

If Sabretooth can join his forces with those already in Shamballah, the change of Morgan and his friends retaking the city will evaporate. They need a diversion to keep Sabretooth’s force from reaching the city until the Shamballan insurgents are ready to march.  Morgan and Trogero will lead a small force to try to delay the Atlanteans.

Far to the South, at the mouth of the Ramphos, Morgan has left a contigent of men encamped, awaiting Captain Hawk’s arrival with freed slaves.  Swift and deadly, the hooded Vashek assassins overrun the camp. They plan to set a trap.

Elsewhere, Sabretooth’s scouts find the trail of a group of men on horseback. They lead to what appears to be an encampment—flying the Warlord’s banner! Sabretooth can’t believe his luck.  He sounds the charge—and his troops charge right into Morgan’s trap.

In the battle that follows, Morgan and Sabretooth grimly strive to work their way toward each other, but when Old Gris calls out that the rest of Sabretooth’s army has arrived, Morgan and his raiders beat a retreat.

Morgan and crew come to a fork in a canyon pass. The left trail is the safe way through; the right leads to Devilwing Canyon. Morgan decides that they will go left, but first sweep the entrance to the right as if they were trying to cover tracks. My Sabretooth arrives he falls for Morgan’s ruse and soon:

Sabretooth tries to lead the tatters of army out of the canyon, only to have rocks rained on them courtesy of Morgan and his men. Morgan also suggests to Sabretooh that his camp is somewhere in the mountains: a lie. 

The enraged devilwings force the Shamballans to retreat, as well, so they’re unable to finish the Atlanteans off.  Morgan charges Old Gris with hanging around and leaving false trails and the like to further confuse Sabretooth.

Back near the Shamballan camp, Tara removes her sword and armlet to take a dip in the river. Tinder and Chakka see the armlet, the one that Tinder views as his—and ironically it is, but also it’s an unrecognized link to his true parents, Morgan and Tara. Tinder considers taking it but he doesn’t want to hurt the Queen. He hesitates.

When Tara emerges returns from her swim, she finds the armlet, her momento of the son she believes dead, gone.

Things to Notice:

• The New Atlantean Hell apparently has sixteen layers.
• To Ashir, "keeping an eye" on Tinder involves teaching him to pick padlocks.

Where It Comes From:
The corrupting power of the Evil One's gem was probably inspired by the One Ring in Lord of the Rings or maybe from Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The tribe of Husklaars probably owe their name to the term huscarl, referring to personal troops or bodyguards. Gris is the French and Low German word for "gray."

WaRPing Weird Adventures

I didn't rush to download any 5e playtest documents this last week, but I did download the WaRP system rules released by Atlas Games the week before under the OGL.WaRP stands for "Wanton Role-Playing," but what it is is the basic system used in Over the Edge. New OGL systems tend to pique my interest, so I thought it might be fun to try for a Weird Adventures game.

I got together the Sunday before last with most of the potential players for character creation. Despite the fairly "rules lite" nature of the system, it still took the players a bit of time to come up with concepts and traits. Being able to do just about anything can some times be as paralyzing as having too many skill or feat options to pour over.

Ultimately, a fairly interesting party began to take shape.  We've got a Yianese professor of arcane antiquities and amateur sleuth, a hoodoo woman, a former professional assassin, an international thief for hire, and an enigmatic woman who can change into a cat (or is that vice versa?). A disparate group, for sure, but hey--the City's a melting pot. It looks like it's going to be an interesting game.

Dustbowl Gothic

Fantasies set in a 1930s sort of setting are pretty rare, so when I heard about Robert Jackson Bennett's Mr. Shivers it piqued my interest. The titular Mr. Shivers is a scar-faced murder roaming Depression era America, a boogie-man among hobos and itinerants--and perhaps a supernatural entity.  The novel tells the story of group of disparate individuals, their lives destroyed by an encounter with Shivers, who set out on the road to find him and bring him to justice.

Bennett's prose is probably most reminiscent of Stephen King.  The view it presents of the American Dustbowl touched by creepy horror recalls HBO's Carnivale.  Still, the tale it tells is its own and is engaging in a gritty, pulpy sort of way.  Bennett sometimes tends to have the characters give a little more exposition about the facts of the Dustbowl or the Great Depression than seems realistic, but this is a minor complaint.

The novel would certainly make good inspiration for a Depression era horror or dark fantasy campaign.

Stupid Little Fairies

An elvish sorceress from the eldritch future world sometimes called the "Planet of the Elves" blasts a couple of pesky ultraterrestrials.  These creatures are said to flit across the ether on their shifting-patterned wings, but more commonly arrive in craft of some sort.

Sorceresses shouldn't be confused with "wizards" who are a whole another sort of being, separate from elves, dwarves, or their lesser kin.  Wizards are extremely dangerous for many reasons--not the least of which being all seem to suffer from some form of insanity, the product of their quest for power at all costs.

Elsewhere, in a dwarven tavern, an adventurer regales the other patrons with a tale.  The trophy under his foot is the head of one of the Metal Men who are sometimes encountered in the ruins. Some are friendly; some are not.

Both pieces are by the very talented Steve LeCouilliard.

Everybody have a good Memorial Day weekend. I'm starting mine early!

Beneath the Planet of the Elves

Every elf or dwarf is aware of the horrors that lurk in the underground ruins of the long dead race of Man: crawling things with superstitiously shunned names, lurching things with nigh unpronounceable names, and oozing things left fearfully unnamed. But none of those evoke more horror than the Cult of the Dread God.

The cultists are utterly subterranean, emerging only briefly at night.  They resemble elves or dwarves, for the most part, except that they are taller and their features (when they are seen) are coarse and with an unhealthy waxiness.  They all dress in the vestments of their order and reveal little more than their faces.

The cultists possess powers of the mind allowing them to stun or control even the most strongly willed elf or dwarf.  They march their victims, puppet-like to their own sacrifice--for that is what the cultists seek when they emerge from their underground temples or monasteries.  Little is known of their hungry god other than his name--which is not commonly spoken for fear of drawing his attention--and that name is Ba’am. No elf has seem the god or his altar and lived.

There are adventurers' tales that suggest their waxy countenances are not the true faces of the cultists, but merely masks.  Whatever they were before, their god has changed them in strange ways. Tales speak of glimpses of bruise-colored tendrils writhing beneath their masks and uncovered heads, hairless and rugous, pulsing with malevolent intelligence.

Warlord Wednesday: Evil in Ebony

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...

"Evil in Ebony"

Warlord #92 (April 1985)

Written by Cary Burkett; Art by Pablo Marcos.

Synopsis: An Atlantean scouting party returns to Shamballah through the forest of Ebondar. Their arrogance at their control of the area makes them an easy target for an ambush by the Warlord and his band. Morgan plans to do some scouting of his own within Atltantean-controlled Shamballah and needs this party’s livery to pull it off.

Meanwhile, underneath Fire Mountain, Jennifer continues to study the Evil One’s artifacts and tells Tinder about her previous encounter with him. The Evil One can’t de destroyed forever, but has been disembodied. He can only return if he can possess another physical form.

While Jennifer is talking, Tinder has been staring into the Evil One’s gem:

Jennifer is able to sever the link with her magic before the Evil One can take him over fully. She locks the gem up so it can’t be any more trouble—she hopes.

Back at Shamballah’s gates, Morgan and Krystovar, dressed as Atlantean soldiers, manage to bluff their way inside. Morgan sees a couple of soldiers stealing from a street peddler and intervenes. He cuts the fingers off one guy’s hand as he tries to take a piece of fruit. Morgan and Krystovar share a tense exchange of glances when the healer insists on tending the wounds of the soldier Morgan maimed.

Looking around, Morgan notes the placement of the defenses around the walls—particularly the energy cannons. He sends Shakira out in cat form on a special scouting mission. Easily completing the mission, she runs into a snag on the way to the rendezvous when a sadistic Atlantean decides to sick his lizard dogs on her. He loses sight of the animals in the chase, but when he catches up to his dogs they’re both dead!

Unbeknownst to Shakira or her antagonists, the old witch, Saaba, has watched these events unfold and now follows the cat with interest.

In Hunker’s Tavern, Krystovar and Morgan are arguing over their differing ideas about mercy toward their enemy. The debate is cut short when Shakira arrives and suggests they get out of Shamballah while they can. The three ride out of town, unaware that Saaba (in crow form) is following them.

They haven’t gone for before she uses her magic to cause trouble:

Morgan and Krystovar manage to stay out of the earth elemental's reach long enough to scramble up a hill and dislodge a boulder. This causes an avalanche to bury the creature. Our three heroes head back to their camp—but not before inadvertently allowing Saaba to overhear their plans for a two pronged attack on Shamballah using the underground tunnel they had used to escape the siege.

Saaba flies back to Shamballah to inform Lord Sabretooth of the Warlord’s strategy.

Things to Notice:

• Saaba the witch again rears her ugly head. She was last seen in issue #84.
• Morgan so dislikes Kystovar's compassion that he almost starts a fight over it.

Where It Comes From:
This is issue is mostly build-up for bad things to come for our protagonists.

The earth elemental that appears in this issue owes more to Dungeons & Dragons than to Paracelsus's conception.