Frankenstein Reprise

Halloween approaches. Cue up the Edgar Winter track and revisit a couple of classic posts about the modern Prometheus. From 2010, here's "Famous Monsters: Frankenstein." Make it a double feature with 2012's "New Flavors of Frankenstein." (And you thought it he only came in green!)

The Cloud Castle of Azurth

This is a map of the Cloud Castle of Azurth and its environs by Arlin Ortiz. Here are some points of interest:

The Vitrified Forest, where lives a man with a very fancy hat.
The Terrarium, giant-sized, as is everything in it.
The Tower. where Zykloon, the Tornado Tyrant dwells.
The Air Docks, where visitors once arrived to see the sights.
The Lair of the Cloud Dragon, perhaps not forlorn, but lonely.
A Cosmic Cat, curled upon a fallen star.

Horror Comic Name Generator

Since the days of EC, horror comic names often have a certain ring to them. Use this hand generator to create your own just in time for Halloween!

Apply rolls on the table to the following patterns to generate titles:

[B] of [C]
[A][B]
[A][C]
[A][B] of [C]
[A][B] of [A][C]
[C] of the [A][B]

Over There

Take the fairyland across the border of Lud-in-the-Mist or A Fall of Stardust. In between it and the "real world" there is a wall or barrier-- let's say an "Anti-Alien Protection Rampart" in official terminology. Instead of England on the real world side there's East Berlin and the GDR or some sutble Eastern Bloc stand-in. Drüben indeed,

While "Workers of the World, Unite Against the Faerie!" would be interesting enough, recasting the fairy presence with some Zone phenomena-like details out of Roadside Picnic and a bit of the seductiveness of the Festival from Singularity Sky: "Entertain us and we will give you want you want." Faerie should be weird and horrifying but also weird and wondrous--in a horrific way, naturally. Miracles, wonders, and abominations.

Of course, the authorities don't want anybody having interaction with the faerie, much less smuggling in their reality-warping, magical tech--and maybe they have a point. But if PCs did the smart thing they wouldn't be adventurers, would they?

New Land of Azurth Rumors

Another edition of The Public Observator for my home groups adventuring needs as our Land of Azurth campaign prepares to enter its second year.

Campaign Rumor Report Card

Eleven months ago, I presented a list of rumors for adventure fodder for the players from an in campaign broadsheet called The Public Observator. I thought it would be a good time to check back and see how many of those things the PCs have delved into.

They first bit on the investigation of the Enchanted Wood. It turns about things were pretty much as rumored: There was a group of wealthy pleasure-seekers paying  Ursa the Witch o' the Woods to turn them into manhounds. The PCs put an end to that.

Next, their patron, Mayor Gladhand, asked them to look into the Lardafan ambassadors disappearance. He was indeed in the Floating World and being held by the Burly Brothers and their gang.In the end, the ambassador was rescued and the Burly Brothers met their demise.

After that, the party's curiosity was piqued by a mysterious device they found. This led them to ask the Clockwork Princess for help. They undertook a mission to get light from a magic crystal in possession of a manticore mage named Mortzengersturm. He wound up being more than a bit homcidal, so the party had to kill him and take the stone--or at least the light from it.

On the way back home, they were waylaid by a cloud giant wizard named Zykloon. He had the Cloud Folk under his thumb and was making them raid the surface world for him. The truth behind another rumor was discovered.

So that pretty much gets us up to the present day. Of the original rumors, only the doings in the Kingdom of the Bee Folk have yet to be investigated. Not too bad.

Strange Stars Setting Assumptions

Art by John Berkley

There are a set of underlying premises to the Strange Stars setting which might affect the play of the game. My assumptions don’t have hold true in your version of Strange Stars, but it is probably helpful to consider how the pieces might interact before rejecting things.

Post-Apocalyptic. The technology level of civilization in the past was higher than today. This provides the rationale for some “sufficiently advanced” Clark level technology, the “points of light” nature of civilization, and also for lost world exploration and space scavenging.

Big But Bounded, and Subdivided. Strange Stars exists within one galaxy--and only a relatively small part of that one, but still there’s plenty of room for new clades, cultures, even minor empires to be introduced without much disruption. The use of hyperspace means that there are “clusters” that can serve as smaller sandboxes if the whole area is too daunting. The game can be as focused as a single world or station.

Harder than Average. While Strange Stars is in no sense a “hard science fiction setting,” there are a number of details I tried to keep “semi-hard” and realistic. Earthlike worlds are most often the result of engineering and there are seldom multiple earth-like planets in a system. Most people will live in orbital habitats. FTL exists but works in such a way that it couldn’t violate causality. There are very few “single biome” planets, and those there are tend to have an explanation for why they exist. The aliens aren't very alien, but that’s because they’re most likely the descendants of humans or human creations.

Intersystem, Fast. Intrasystem, Slow. Related to the last point is the way FTL works. Hyperspace nodes tend to go to one place in a system (and may well dump out somewhere other than directly at the planet of interest). In system travel is most likely non-FTL and takes a while. This allows both zipping around the galaxy (at least a part of it) and “realistic” distribution of clades, but with a hard science fiction scale to a solar system, allowing the full array of grizzled asteroid prospectors, fringe religious communities on gas giant moons, or isolated research bases. The planets highlighted in the setting book are just the “major feature” of their respective systems, not the whole story. Of course, the way space travel works also has implications for how and where space battles are fought.

A Post-Internet Conception. Most classic space opera doesn’t take into account the internet in general, much less ubiquitous social media, but these things are present in Strange Stars. As a rule of thumb, imagining “how would that work in the Strange Stars?” involves more extrapolation from the present that looking back to how it was done in Star Wars or Star Trek.

There’s Always Belief. The future doesn’t mean belief systems go away. The best of space opera (Dune, for instance) deals with this, but it was something I didn’t want to leave out or to portray one-dimensionally. From the arbitrary taboos of the Kosmoniks to the realpolitik theocracy of the Instrumentality, it’s an important part of what makes cultures in the setting distinct.

Wednesday Comics: Manifest Destiny

"Manifest Destiny"

Manifest Destiny #1 (November 2013), Written by Chris Dingess; Art by Michael Roberts

Synopsis: In May of 1804, the Lewis & Clark expedition is on their way to La Charette on the Missouri River. Lewis is the journal-keeper and artist, cataloging nature. Clark is the man of action and disciplinarian. We find out that they are keeping too logs: one for Congress (presumably the one history records) and another, truer log detailing their progress in their real mission from Jefferson: to clear the West of monsters.

So far, there haven't been any monsters or anything unusual. Lewis worries that the mercenaries and freed convicts that fill out their ranks beyond the soldiers may become unruly with time. The importance of their mission has been kept from the men. The lack of unusual is about to change:

They investigate, thinking it must be some funerary structure or religious site. Jensen, a murder saved from the noose, is less interested in the arch and more interested in talking desertion with Wallace. Jensen has noticed that virtually everyone on this trip has no family. None of them will be missed.

The sergeant overhears them discussing desertion and plans to report them. It doesn't get a chance as something emerges from the woods and charges over him. As it runs past the men, Lewis shoots it dead.

Meanwhile, Jensen kills the injured sergeant so he can't reveal their plans.

An Evil Carnival in Azurth

Art by Jeff Call

Last night, our fifth edition Land of Azurth campaign continued. A mysterious carnival on the outskirts of Riverton hadn't paid its taxes (and a few people have disappeared--but that's less important), so Mayor Gladhand asked the party to step in and take a look. Casing the place in the daytime when it was closed, revealed very little activity, but Shae the Ranger played Dr. Doolittle and found out the horses for the carnival wagons were actually townsfolk who had been polymorphed.  The carnies run off the party before they can get more. This will be a theme of the session as the party tries to get to the horses to get more information, but are thwarted by carnie folk. The frogling thief Waylon theorizes horses may have switched places with humans!

While the party plots, darkness arrives and the carnival opens. Dagmar discovers the ale and cider at the food tent is magical, but the party lets the townsfolk drink anyway to monitor its effects. As far as they can tell, it makes some people slightly sick and they are escorted out of the carnival. Meanwhile, some townsfolk disappear into exhibits, and halfling clowns seem to close in on the PCs, subtly, but menacingly.

Pretty soon the carnival seems to close--but the real show begins. Carnies reveal themselves as wererats and attack. The turban of Marvello the Mentalist hides an intellect devour that attacks Dagmar the Cleric and Erkose the fighter. A cry for help from a damsel in distress in the peepshow tent turns out to be Verna the Viridescent Beauty who is really a green hag. Mister Pumpkin, the carnival owner, makes his appearance along with an entourage of capering, knife-wielding halfling clowns.

Verna before she turned out to be a Hag in disguise

The party comes out pretty well, though. They discover that Mister Pumpkin is a rat-king and a swarm of rats beneath a robe. All the carnies are wererats, and all the animals in the menagerie are hapless polymorphed townspeople. The rats flee, and the party confiscates their small amount of treasure without ever knowing the full nature of their plan, where the hag and the other monsters that might have been in the exhibits got off too, or what consuming the concessions will do to the townspeople.

Fate SF Strange Stars A-D

As a sort of lead up to the release of Strange Stars Fate (soon now!), it's author, John Till has been doing some Strange Stars related posts on his blog. Even if Fate isn't your system of choice, there is some good and gameable stuff, here!

A: Attendants--a moravec clade who provide topnotch service to the wealthiest clients.
B: Bomoth on Boreas!
C: Clades and how you use them.
D: Adding the Deaders from Last Parsec to Strange Stars.

Probably Not in Strange Stars

I've talked a lot about finding inspiration in older sci-fi,  but their are some vintage TV aliens, I just couldn't fit in:

No two headed clades. Not even on Mars like in the Twilight Zone.

The Saticons from Lost in Space know how to accessorize, but well...

The Lobster Man from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has no opposable thumbs.

Like Talislanta, Strange Stars has no elves, so these guys from the Lost in Space episode "Space Vikings" are out.

The zarbi and the menoptera from Doctor Who. What is there to say really?

Hyehoon: Another Strange Stars SWN Excerpt

This is pretty much the format the clades for player character use will be in in the Strange Stars Old School book, currently in the works:

HYEHOON
Physical Characteristics: Biologic humanoids with some avian characteristics. They have lighter frames than baseline humans, but are strong for their weight. Head and brow hair is replaced by light, downy feathers.
Psychological Characteristics: Hyehoon are dynamic and inquisitive. They get along well with other clades.
Names: While there is variation based on subculture, most hyehoon have a personal name, a clutch name (immediate family), and a clan name (larger kinship group). Their typical ordering convention is clan name, personal name, clutch name. Samples:
Female Personal Names: Ahwi, Hyana, Oona, Wheta, Yaren, Yrari
Male Personal Names: Apata, Hamoon, Helo, Olo, Tuvo, Ydris
Clutch Names: use personal names from either gender
Clan Names: Ahmat, Aroi, Milonga, Ro, Sokha, Yooloo, Waroi
Backgrounds: Any; Adventurer, Astrogator’s Mate, Biotech Crew, Comm Crew, Politician, Researcher, and Technician are typical.
Classes: Any.
Attributes: standard.

Wednesday Comics: Queen of the Man-Things

Reviews of previous issues of Weirdworld can be found here.

"Queen of the Man-Things"

Weirdworld #4 (November 2015), Written by Jason Aaron; Art by Michael Del Mondo

Synopsis: Arkon and Skull the Slayer have plunged into a swamp where the very touch of the vegetation burns. The Slayer has the upper hand, but Arkon luckily finds one of his lightning bolt-shaped weapons underwater, and stabs Skull with it.

The combatants are both grabbed by plant creatures rising from the much--Man-Things. They again burn as they feel fear, Arkon sees the flames consuming his beloved Polemachus.

The Queen of the Man-Things comments that there is so much fear in both of them. She is Jennifer Kale and she reveals that Skull is James Patrick Scully and they are both from the world beyond Weirdworld. She tells Arkon that it is Morgan Le Fay, the Baroness of Weirdworld that hunts him and Skull works for her.

Kale wants to depose Le Fay and bring peace to the world and for that, she needs soldiers. She takes two winged frog things and puts them in their mouths. Arkon sees a vision of Polemachus upside down, but he realizes it's something more that his fear of his world being turned upside down.

Skull's vision makes him see the error of his ways. Kale rechristens him Skull the Redeemer. She turns to Arkon...

He rejects her offer and flees. Kale lets him go. Arkon runs through an area of rock that looks familiar. He's at the place where Polemachus should be, but it's gone. He's at the edge of Weirdworld. Arkon prepares to committee suicide. What he doesn't know:

Commentary:
Man-Thing is famous (well, as non-top tier Marvel characters go). Jennifer Kale is a supporting cast character from the Man-Thing's comic; she's heir to ancient Atlantean magics.

After the Flood

After a weekend of heavy rain and flooding in this neck of the woods, some uses of floods and their aftermaths in games is on my mind. There's what I've got:

The Lost City: Inundated coastal cities might become lost or at least legendary. Ys is a good example. There's typically a mystery here or at least potent magic. It might be a whole area to explore, or just a bit of weirdness in a campaign.

Looting the Depths: Jesse Bullington's The Folly of the World includes an attempted theft in town submerged by the Saint Elizabeth's Flood of 1421(the 20th worst flood in history). "Moon fishing" is apparently the term for treasure among the ruins of the towns flooded by China's Three Gorges Dam. Looting underwater would present special challenges for adventurers and a different array of monsters than the usual.

Something Strange Beneath the Surface: You already know about aquatic elves and aquatic trolls, but let's got deeper. In Swamp Thing #38, Alan Moore presents an aquatic mutation of vampires in the submerged town of Rosewood, Illinois. Any monster can have an aquatic variant but the key to making them non-mundane is having them by one-offs in unusual circumstances.

A Special Snowflake Called Azurth

Art by Jeff Call

Humza K, author of the Legacy of Bieth and newest Hydra Cooperative member, has started a series of interview posts at the Hydra blog about "Special Snowflake" D&D settings. His interview with me regarding the Land of Azurth was the first published.

Go read it here.

Another Strange Stars Fate Tease

The Strange Star Fate Rule Book draws ever closer. Here are two sample pages. The title page featuring art by Adam Moore:

And the character record sheet:

Kickstart A World of Visceral Adventure

Looking for a good Kickstarter? Even if you're not, I've got one for you. Friend of the Sorcerer's Skull, Mike "Wrathofzombie" Evans brings you a detailed setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics: The World of Hubris. Mike calls it a "high-octane, meat-grinder, weird fantasy setting," and I'd say that's just about right. Want to see for yourself? Check out his blog and where it has been developing. You also see some great art the likes of David Lewis Johnson and Jason Sholtis have done for the setting. If you like what you see (and why wouldn't you?) throw some love the Kickstarter's way.

Wednesday Comics: Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall #1 & 2 (2015), Written by Patrick McHale; Art by Jim Campbell.

Boom! Studios is in the midst of a four issue limited series expanding on the 2014 Cartoon Network mini-series (whose virtues I've extolled before), Over the Garden Wall. The series presents additional adventures of Wirt and Gregory in their wandering through the fairy-tale like Unknown as they attempt to find a way back home. It manages to well-capture the series' feel--not surprising since the writer is the show's creator.

Issue #1 is set between episodes 3 and 4 of the mini-series. Wirt, Gregory, and the bluejay Beatrice are trying to get to the house of Adelaide of the Pasture. They wind up attending a tea party and performing odd chores (which Wirt can never get right). It all ends in tears--a house's tears, in fact--and the trio moves on.

Issue #2 takes place between Episodes 4 and 5 and features the backstory of Fred the horse who joined our protagonists when they left the tavern at the end of Episode 4. It features the foibles of over-honesty, and a strange encounter with a perhaps-ghostly Highwayman (the same one who sang the song in Episode 4) in a covered bridge at night.

Two more issues are to come.

New SWN Backgrounds for Strange Stars

Work continues on the Stars Without Number/Old School Sci-Fi Game of your choice compatible version of Strange Stars (release date update, when I have good data to give you!) and heres an outtake: new character backgrounds.

Bureaucrat
Despite the ubiquity of nonsophont minds, there are still plenty of sophont middle managers, datapushers, administrators, and salarymen, in the ranks of government and corporations. Some of them get tired of jockeying a desk for substandard pay and give it up for something more exciting.
Skills: Bureaucracy, Culture/World, either Culture/Corporate or Profession/Legal, Steward

Businessperson
Small time entrepreneurs and up and coming junior executives exist on every civilized world. Sometimes they chafe against bureaucracy or make some bad decisions and decide to look for better markets.
Skills: Business, Culture/Any, Persuade, Steward

Data Prospector
There's a lot of valuable information buried in the depths of a planetary or system noospheres. Data prospectors mine the infospace for value. Sometimes they find things that make them decide to have a look at what's beyond their world for themselves.
Skills: Computer, Culture/Any, Perception, either Bureaucracy or Tech/Any

Entertainer
On every world, in every time, sophonts have wanted to be entertained. Many musicians, thespians, or courtesans, decide to become itinerants, seeing the galaxy as they make their living.
Skills: Art/Any Performing Art, Culture/Artist Subculture, Persuade, one other skill

Hacker
Everyone uses computers without even thinking about it, but hackers know the very soul of the networks. Some of them are criminals, some of them work to stop criminals. Either way, it can be easy to get on the wrong side of the wrong people and find it expedient to get out of the local jurisdiction.
Skills: Computer, either Bureaucracy, Culture/Corporate or Culture/Criminal, Persuade, Tech/Any but Astronautic, Maltech, or Medical

Journalist
News is everywhere and journalists are there to sift through the data and bring connection and context to their audience. Some get the idea to go gonzo and get in the stories themselves, while some others make enemies in places of power. Both sorts can be encountered among the Strange Stars.
Skills: Culture/Any, Perception, Persuade, and one other skill.

Law Enforcement
Beat cop, port authority security contractor, or corporate investigator, the law enforcer does a tough job, often for little reward. Is it any wonder some of them look for a way to put their skills to more lucrative use?
Skills: Combat/Any, Culture/World, Perception, Security

Medtech
Most actual medicine is before by expert systems and bots, but sophont beings usually like a friendly, sophont face on their healthcare. The medtech provides that. Occasionally, though they have an itch to really put their skills to use in situations where they can't rely on bots to do the real work.
Skills: Profession/Medical, Culture/World, Science, Tech/Medical

Psychtech
In an age of nanopsychotherapy to deal with serious mental illness, the "sophont touch" is still prized--particularly by the wealthy. An understanding of sophont psychology is a skill that has a lot of uses, though.
Skills: Culture/World,  Persuade, Profession/Mental Health, either Perception or Tech/Medical

Goblinic Slime

In the Land of Azurth, Goblins don't reproduce in the manner of humankind or humanish creatures, but instead they arise from pools of a viscious, green fluid, faintly luminescent in darkness. This fluid, which wells up from the depths beneath Subazurth, is called goblinic slime--or sometimes "goblin snot" in the vulgate of the Underfolk.

How many goblins and how fast they arise depends on available sources of energy and the volume of slime. Even a pool only a few inches dead and a couple of feet across, and in a cool, dark place can produce at least a few goblin larva. Deeper or larger pools, warmed by heat from the depths, can produce hundreds, even thousands. In ideal conditions, goblins wallow in their pools until virtually adult size, but where resources are scarce, they may crawl worth as tiny goblings only inches tall (1 HP) and are certainly a menace to others when their are a foot to two feet tall (2d4 HP).

Goblins are born sexless, but at apparent maturity (in terms of size), a slight majority develop male or female sexual characteristics, seemingly at random. While some goblins (regardless of sex) enthusiastically engage in sexual activity, reproduction never results.

There are rumors of remote places in Subazurth where slime pools are associated with strange machinery--hissing valves, wheezing pumps, gurgling pipes, and the like--attended by other goblins in great numbers. These are places the prudent avoid.

 Learned texts disagree on whether goblin slime is edible, if unappetizing [a Constitution save DC 15 is necessary to avoid vomiting] or toxic to the unwise ingester by means of internal goblinization. If the former sources are to be believed, slime causes a rumbling in the bowels and strange dreams, but also may confer the ability to understand the native goblinic tongue (40% chance) for 1d10 days. If the more pessimistic sources are take for true, at a failed DC 13 Constitution save, goblins will propagate inside the individual within 1d10 days leading to 2d4 points damage a day and a DC 11 Constitution save to avoid death as they try to emerge.

Giants of Azurth

The Giants of Azurth are a varied lot, not strictly fitting into Gygaxian categories. The giants in the country of Yanth are typically primitive and almost certainly not very bright, though they are not necessarily evil (though they're likely to be). This:

And this:

Would reflect your typical Yanth giant. There is some evidence that was not always the case and that in some remote time (maybe before Azurth became Azurth) there were floating cities of blue-skinned, giantish folk, who enjoyed a life of science fictional splendor as only mid-century America could correctly imagine. They looked something like this:

They all disappeared and their cloud cities are mostly abandoned, except perhaps for a few degenerate examples.

Beyond Yanth, in the countries of Sang and Virid, giants are often less human looking and more uniformly hostile--though still not exclusively. This would be a giant you might find in those lands: