Wednesday Comics:The Coming of the Slayer

"The Coming of the Slayer"

Weirdworld #3 (October 2015), Written by Jason Aaron; Art by Michael Del Mondo

Synopsis: Arkon and Warbow manage to fight their way free of the magma men that had them surrounded last issue. They drop into a conveniently waiting boat in the lava below. They make good their escape, but not before Warbow yells their names defiantly to the magma men.

Once they are in a place of safety, Arkon is eager to take his leave of the obviously somewhat mad Warbow. He asks for the map he was promised before he goes:

While just has crazy, the map doesn't at all resemble what Arkon had on his map. Warbow explains the land is called Weirdworld for a reason--it's everchanging.

Meanwhile, the magma men report to Morgan Le Fay the two heroes escape--and their names. She decides to send an assassin after Arkon, a man named Skull the Slayer. Skull is busy slaying elves when he gets the message.

He and Arkon meet up at a tavern. After an exchange of vague grimness, the fight commences. The Slayer seems to have the better of him, until Arkon causes them both to plummet from the mountain into a jungle below.

Commentary:
Another obscure Marvel character makes his appearance: James "Skull" Scully.

What I Did (and Didn't Do) on My Vacation

Very little rpg-related, is the short answer, but I'm back and ready to resume my usual blogging schedule. I figure the best place to start is with a product update.

On the Strange Stars front: the good news first. Work on the old school gamebook is going to accelerate, thanks to the Fate book being (mostly) put to bed, vacation behind me, and Robert "Savage World of Krul" Parker's help.

Now the bad news. I had hoped to be announcing this week that the Fate book would be released in a another few days to a week, but alas, that is not to be. A file crash (which I'm told is a known issue with large InDesign files) caused us to lose the most of the last edits. B. Portly is having to put those back in a second time. My hope is that that won't take too long, but I can't give a specific timeframe.

Beyond Strange Stars, I've been planning to devote my energies next to doing a couple of adventures. In Doom's Wake is a piratical thing that I've already talked about the first playtest of here. The other is set in the Land of Azurth, my current 5e game world, and will be called The Cloud Castle of Azurth. You'll be heairng more about these on the blog, but Strange Stars will be done before either of these sees the light of day.

A Catalog of Baroque Space

Too John Dee and Paracelsus to be Spelljammer, too antiquated and weird to be Space: 1899. Here's all the posts I've written on Baroque Space in one place:

Baroque Space: The Argument.
The Planetary Spheres: A cosmos in one place.
The Fae Moon: Is an eldritch mistress
The Inner Planets: Mercurians and Venerians.
Among the Asteroids: Random asteroids.
Death & Time: Saturn is a gloom place.
Famous Pirates of Baroque Space: Dashing villains all, I'm sure.
Social Classes: Life on Earth.

In Doom's Wake Again

This weekend the expedition into the weird weed sea around the Doom's Wake continued. After the unexpected assault last time (for the pirates, but also the PC's actions for surprisingly effective to me as the GM). The pirate's get on a little better footing. Good rolls and strategy (involving a druid transformed into a bear and a cloud of daggers in front of a door) let the PCs the prevailed against lieutenants shark-faced Squalo and starfish-headed sorcerer Astero, as well as a dozen nameless pirates. It did not, however, prevent the pirates from informing their compatriots the PCs were coming.

By luck as much as design, the player's avoided a confrontation with the grim matriarch of the pirates, which very likely would have resulted in their deaths--and probably unhappiness with the adventure. This was not an old school crowd inured to the total party kill. The warnings by NPCs made them more curious than afraid, but in the end the learning the prisoners they sought were actually held elsewhere made them move on.

On the next assault, the pirates had the high ground and a warning the PCs were coming. There was even an ambush by the lamprey-faced lieutenant Handsome Blut with a wight's drain attack! In the end though fate left Blut with really bad rolls and the superior numbers of the PCs forced him to flee, badly injured.

The victory at the prison ship was more attributable to good player tactics. They had an approach over the weeds that left them easy targets for pirate crossbows, but they used an obscuring mist and minor illusions to improve their odds. The pirates were also beginning to feel the loss in their numbers.

In the end, the prisoners were rescued, but by negotiation, not force. Some pirates were left alive to continue their raids, and the source of the pirate queen's particular interest in Ligeia Marsh, adopted daughter of Clegg Hobtree, major of the Raedel, remained a background mystery.

One of the player's (an experienced GM of other games) suggested weakening the mook pirates, and increasing the power of the more colorful lieutenants. Uping the lieutenants power is probably a good idea, though the pirates were probably about as weak as they can get. The difficult with them is just a nature of their number and the D&D system. It may be I need to think about the staging of the encounters though, so perhaps fewer mook pirates might be necessary.

Consult the Dictionary

I've updated the Dictionary of Azurth with a few new entries, reflecting things from more recent blog posts and adventures in the ongoing campaign. Read it here.

Sirens

Art by Diane Özdamar

In the first part of my pirate-Sargasso adventure "In Doom's Wake" the PCs encountered three unusual, but alluring creatures in a half-submerged wreck. There were 3 Cecalian (thanks, internet!) mermaids: Giddy, Sheela, and Pru. In place of legs, or a traditional mermaids fish tail, they had squid-like tentacles--a vampire squid's webbed tentacles in this case, making them look like they wore long skirts. They also had a color change and light-producing ability like a cuttlefish. In 5e, I statted them pretty much like Merfolk with a few special features. Here are their abbreviated stats:

AC 11, HP: 16
STR: 10, DEX:13 (+1), CON: 12 (+1), INT: 11, WIS 11, CHA 13 (+1)

Tentacles. Melee Weapon Attack +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage. Hit creature is grappled (escape DC 12).

Mesmerizing Light Display. As the spell Hypnotic Pattern. Wisdom save or be charmed (incapacitated, speed of 0). DC 11 to resist.

In all other respects they had the abilities of Merfolk.

Wednesday Comics: The Spire #2

The Spire #2 (August 2015); Written by Simon Spurrier, Art by Jeff Stokely

The Spire is a tower city in the middle of a desert. A desert (we discover in this issue) that has air toxic to humans, at least with repeated exposure. This also ties in to the origin of "the Skews," the strange, near humans that suffer prejudice within the city. They were apparently made in the "Antiki" times to live places and do things humans could not. Watch Commander Shå is a Skew. She's also trying to solve a series of murders.

There's a serial killer in the lower city who has ties to the high class upper part of town, according to a couple of tracker animals. Then there's an apparent attempt on the life of the Marchioness, the mother of the newly ascended Baroness that instead takes the life of her nursemaid.

Meanwhile, religious zealots in the deserts are massing, and a messanger sent at the death of the old baron is returning to the Spire with a mysterious group of Sculpted (the polite name for Skews).

I suspect all these things tie in together and to the history of the Spire. Still a lot of worldbuilding in this issue (which isn't bad, but any means) but the mystery seems to be picking up steam, even if the main characters don't seem to know it yet.