Junkyard Rats

With Diabolico still absent and Lenny wandering off at the urging of his inner (rabbit) demon, Boris and Loone were left to investigate Greasy Lake Scrapyard on there own. At the junkyard they unexpectedly met lion-tamer and adventure serial star, Cornelius Doyle.

Doyle was there after what he suspected was a werewolf. Everybody was surprised when they were attack by a family of yokel wererats. The teenagers Tater and Jughaid took a bite (literally) out of Boris, while Papa Snuffy and Mama Luweezy went after Doyle and Erskine. Doyle’s foresight in bringing silver bullets paid off. Luweezy and Snuffy were quickly snuffed.

Their offspring only lasted a little longer. Boris was badly injured, so the gang had to hide from a couple of Eisenmensch investigating the gunshots. Stealthily following them, they discovered a rally being led by a masked figure promising a group of Eisenmensch that their weak flesh would soon be replaced utterly by machine--and then the same would be true for the rest of imperfect humanity. Interestingly, on the stage with this figure was Silas Atwill, Hew Hazzard’s newly named head of automata development.

Informed of the dead wererats, the Eisenmenschen began to spread out looking for infiltrators. The gang beat a haste retreat and made it back to the City. Boris got treated for wereratism at the charity hospital.

Our heroes still have more questions than answers. The leader of the Eisenmenschen would-be revolutionaries has the dodecahedron--but who is the leader? Does Hazzard know what his subordinate is up to? Where is the heartspring the dodecahedron needs, and what happens if it’s activated?

In other news, the gang finally got their secretary: Miss Lola DeWytt:

Warlord Wednesday: Deathwatch

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...

"Deathwatch"

Warlord #102 (February 1986)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Penciled by Paris Cullins and Martin King, Inked Pablo Marcos

Synopsis: Morgan veers slightly from his destination of the Greenfire Sea (where he hopes to find a wizard who can cure Jennifer from her aging illness) so he can go by his crashed jet and get more ammo from his stash.  He finds it (again) being used as a place a sacrifice by some cultists.  Morgan routs them and frees there intended victim, who turns out to be a bit on the haughty side:

She’s Zupara, Queen of the Q’enara Amazons, and rather than walk all the way back to her valley, she decides she’ll ride with Morgan until she can steal a horse.  Along the way, she tells the story of her tribe, who came to Skartaris from the surface eons ago to escape “the patriarchal domination of males.”

Zupara became queen on the death of her mother, but the attack of a river monster on the funeral barge caused her to be swept over a waterfall.  She wound up in the cultists’ hands.

It just isn't her day: No sooner has she finished her story, than they’re ambushed and netted by slavers!

Elsewhere, Machiste and Mariah encounter a beggar on the road from Shamballah to Kiro who knows who Machiste is and prophecizes that his reign will be marked by prosperity and he and Mariah will have many descendants.  As soon as the couple passes, the mendicant ties a message to the leg of a pigeon and sends it off.  Sometime later, it’s received in an opulent mansion in Kiro, where to conspirators learn of Machiste’s impending return and hint menacingly that he will never arrive.

Meanwhile, Morgan and Zupara are tied up in the slaver’s camp.  A dice game keeps their captors distracted long enough that they can cut their bonds and attack.  Beating up the slavers, they steal too horses and make for a nearby town for a good meal.

In a tavern, Zupara is disgusted by the behavior of men in regard to a dancing girl.  Worse yet, when a patron gets too friendly with Zupara herself:

Morgan finds himself in a tavern brawl. He fights his way to the door, pulling the reluctant Zupara along. She'd would rather stay and continue the fight.

Finally, they reach the borders of Zupara’s homeland, and they prepare to part ways.  Before they can, a contingent of amazons show up and seize Morgan!  It seems a big bald amazon has usurped Zupara’s throne in her absence and doesn’t want to relinquish rulership.  She challenges Zupara to trial by combat—with Morgan’s life in the balance, too!

After a pitch battle, Zupara wins and sees her foe topple into the flames. Zupara regains her throne and frees Morgan. She thanks him for his help—but tells him to be gone and never set foot in the land of the amazons again!

Morgan rides on.

Things to Notice:   

• Morgan's crashed SR-71 was used by lizardmen as a place of sacrifice back in issue #3.
• The amazon's have a sort of Kirby-esque aesthetic to their material culture.

Where it Comes From:
Amazons are sort of a comic book and pulp fiction stable who have there origins, of course, in Greek mythology. It seems odd it took them a 102 issues to show up in Warlord.

This issue may be inspired by to Warlord issues from the Grell run.  The "plane as altar" from the aforementioned issue #3. Issue #48 bears some similarities with its sacrifice that's more than she seems and Morgan himself having to be rescued (by a woman in both cases).

Contest Submissions Closed

The deadline for submitting entries for the Gimme Your Weird Adventures contest has passed. The response was bigger than I anticipated.  Thanks to everyone for their entries!

I've been reading them as they've come in, but the tough job of trying to choose between them looms.  If enlisted some help from a panel culled from my face to face gaming group.  I'll announce the results as soon as we finish our deliberations.

Hell's Hoods: The Bull

A river of blood arises from slaughterhouse and rendering plant runoff flowing through a maze of ditches and channels.  This is the Malebolge: the territory of an infernal crime family of the same name. Besides running the processing facilities for damaged souls, the Malebolge family promotes violent crimes and extortion on the Material Plane.

The family’s boss is the arch-devil Moloch. Whether dressed in a butcher’s apron or a suit, he’s imposing: a hulking figure with the head of a bull.  His upper body and head are skinless, and his horns and eyes are black as onyx.  Smoke periodically snorts from his nostrils. His shadow is thick and the color of congealing blood.

Combat: Moloch fights like a minotaur--and one of great strength.  He prefers to kill foes with his hands, horns, or hooves as opposed to weapons; He particularly disdains firearms.

Diabolical Abilities: Moloch’s presence can cause fear within a 20 ft. radius. He can cause pain in anyone he touches, but he only uses this to aid coercion or intimidation. Moloch has a special interest in drawing the young into the criminal life, and despite his horrific form, has an unusual affinity with adolescents.

Pacts: Moloch may be summoned by burning money (taken from another) within a circle drawn in blood on the floor of a meat locker. Moloch can cause an “accident” to happen to a place of business. He knows the location of any secreted stashes of money, and where the remains of any individual murdered and hidden on the prime material plane may be found.   

The City by Gaslight

Weird Adventures presents the City and it’s world in the year 5888, an era of automobiles, machine guns, and jazz.  Of course, that’s not the only age when there’s adventure to be had:

Roughly a hundred years ago, alchemical gaslamps began to appear in the streets of the City. For about forty years, their flickering lights held sway--but banishing the night didn’t always banish the darkness.

The little wars in the South and West created battle-hardened veterans and  returned them to the streets of the City ,where times were hard and opportunities few. Political corruption was the order of the day.  Immigrants streamed from all over the world to be crammed into the most crowded slums in existence where disease and crime were rampant.

And then, of course, there were the monsters.

Foes: Serial killer thaumaturgists, street gangs, corrupt politicians and their cronies, mad inventors.

Media Inspirations: Film/TV: Copper, Gangs of New York, Sherlock Holmes, Vidocq, The Wild Wild West; Books: The Alienist, The Dante Club, The Devil in the White City, the John Silence stories, the Carnacki Ghost-Finder stories; Comic Books: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, From Hell (the movie, too), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Weird Western Tales (2001).

Miscellaneous Inspirations: Jack the Ripper, Spring-Heeled Jack, Spiritualism,Steampunk.

The End is Near

The deadline for the Gimme Your Weird Adventures adventure seed contest draws nigh: Monday the 17th. So if you've been procrastinating, get those in!

For some further inspiration, here's Shane "Swords Against the Outer Dark" Mangus's great entry.

Lenny Goes Undercover

In last nights Weird Adventures WaRP game on Google+, the gang followed up on some leads but were still left with no clear idea of who killed the body of the now disembodied brain William Carmody or kidnapped his fiancee.  Without Diabolico in attendance, they had no car, so that meant a lot of cab rides.

First, they crashed the Cobalt Club to check try to dig up something on industrialist Hew Hazzard, who Carmody had been working with. This involved overall wearing Lenny having to wear a coat and tie. Loone pretended to be a reporter out for an interview, but no headlines were made from his chat with Hazzard.

Next, Lenny went undercover to infiltrate Waxy Moldoon's gang.  He had impressed Two Teeth (a suboordinate) with his moxie last time and got offered a job. Lenny got a chance to prove himself in front of the boss by applying "harsh interrogation" to an Eisenmensch they had captured.  What did thaumatosurgically altered cyborgs from the Great War have to do with this?  Well, Waxy seemed to think they had the dodecahedron (or "dingus" as he called it).

Either the guy didn't know anything or wasn't talking, and Lenny contrived to bust him out and escape, which he did with the help of a fire started by Boris, telepathically coordinated by Loone.  Before that, though, Lenny almost lost control to his "imaginary" rabbit-like companion who wanted him to kill them all:

After they made their escape under the goons' guns, they used a bit of gentler interrogation on Karl the Eisenmensch.  he still claimed to no nothing, but Loone's peaks into his mind revealed he did know of a group of Eisenmensch that were good candidates for having the device, and a place called "Greasy Lake" seemed important.  Boris recalled there was a big junkyard at a place called Greasy Lake.

The gang decided to find Diabolico and check it out.