Into the Shadows

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last Sunday with the party (after a rest and healing) undertaking the capture of the other shadow/temporal duplicate of the nefarious Wizard of Azurth they had run across, the mysterious Shadow Man in the Half-ruined Tower.

The group objects to the possibility of running into their earlier selves, but Princess Viola and her Gnomes already had that figured out. The slide show they present says they are sending the PCs back to 5 days after they left the area.

When they arrive in the past, there is still one Gloom Elf in the tower, but he's in no mood for fighting. He says the Shadow retreated into the large, whirlpool of shadow that now takes up most of the tower, but there was a blockage in it somewhere and he doesn't seem to have gotten where he was going. 

With little else to go on, the party jumps in after him. They find themselves (surprisingly) in a prison dungeon, partially flooded, and partially caved in, run by Mole Folk. The mole folk are remarkably lackadaisical about their situation, noting that time runs differently here, but they are reasonably friendly. The dungeon itself is something of a maze with unnatural darkness, so even the mold guards used unspooling twine to help from getting lost. The prisoners are in oubliettes with sort of steampunk contraption doors, set to open when their sentence is up. 

Using their hand-held device given to them previously by the Princesses, the party discovers the Shadow is in one of these cells. Waylon is able to pick the locking mechanism, causing the chronometer to run faster, making it open.

The Shadow is inside, and though the part is expecting him to fight them, he is willing to go, even knowing what they are up to. Having had different experiences from the Wizard, he has had a change of heart. He says if they can find "the bridge" located elsewhere in the dungeon, they can get to a place to acquire a page from the Book of Doors that will take them directly to the Wizard's sanctum.

The party sends the Shadow back to the Princesses with a gem. The Shadow suggests the way to find the bridge is to ask the guards. They intend to do just that, but no sooner than they are out of the cell and debating a course of action than a random encounter roll leads to a very ugly bird-beast coming upon them.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1985 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were on stands in the week of February 7, 1985. 

This first week marks a milestone, with my brother and I owning 5 of these 7 issues, and three of them we definitely bought off the stands. The others were maybe acquired a year or two later from dollar bins.

Deadman #1: The stunning Neal Adams cover got my brother or me to pick up this one, despite no knowledge of the character. The issue reprints the earliest Deadman stories from Strange Adventures #205, 206, and House of Mystery #178. I wonder if the timing of this reprint series was meant to raise the profile of the new limited series that would be coming along in '86?

Crisis on Infinite Earths #2: This was my introduction to Crisis. I bought it off the stands at my local grocery store. The sense of impending...well, crisis begins to build as time is disrupted with a mammoth herd leaving Anthro's era and winding up in the Legion's 30th Century. In the modern day on Earth-One, Batman is going after the Joker when and image of a frantic and decaying Flash appears before him, begging for help and warning of disaster. The heroes and villains gathered by the Monitor are sent to Kamandi's Earth After Disaster and ancient Atlantis to defend tower-like devices erected by the Monitor for something, I guess, from shadow demons. Psycho-Pirate is the first villain to show his colors and turn on the heroes; he's defeated but them but whisked away to serve the same shadowy force that commands Harbinger.

Things are moving fast, and the narrative reasons for things are sometimes poorly explained, but on balance the script and visual storytelling work to tell a compelling story.

Atari Force #17: This was only issue I bought off the spinner rack after issue one. Barreto is back on pencils. Taz's Tazlings reveal their pretty much magical repair ability by fixing Backjak's missing eye and taking the bit of the Destroyer out of his brain. Then, the same thing gets done for Kragg after Morphea has a psychic battle with the Dark Destroyer, and Rident gets to witness the psychic projects. Dart manages to make contact with Chris again, confirming Atari and New Earth are still around. 

DC Comics Presents #81: Another story that's effectively a plug for the upcoming Giffen/Fleming Ambush Bug limited series, but I like the Bug and that series, so it's cool with me. Ambush Bug finds a hunk of red kryptonite and gives it to his "pal" Superman but knowing what it is. Its effects cause the two to switch bodies, and at a time when Kobra makes a move to steal Ambush Bug's teleportation tech.

Fury of Firestorm #35: In a moment I'm sure inspired by the iconic Amazing Spider-Man #33, Firestorm tap reserves of street to escape a mass of ice threatening to crush him. While the Stein/Ronnie team is dealing with Stein's decision to move to another city, potentially ending Firestorm, Plastique gains new explosion powers and Killer Frost lays a trap for our hero. In the end, Firestorm is at the mercy of the two villains united.

Justice League of America #238: This is another issue I owned, but I didn't remember much beyond the cover. Conway and Patton/Machlan give Conway's new team their first direct interaction with some of the members of the League's most famous incarnation.  The New League flies into the Soviet Union to rescue Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash who are being held captive by a crazy general and his keytar playing super-villain henchman, Maestro. The new kids win the day, in part due to the element of surprise, but they also get help from the Anton Allegro, long imprisoned by Gorki, who shoots Maestro in revenge. Gypsy reveals a previously unknown illusion power which seems to shatter Gorki's mind, at least temporarily. The heroes leave the USSR with a final panel oddly showing Martian Manhunter still on the ground as the League plane takes off, holding Allegro's body.

Tales of the Teen Titans #53: Lilith is attacked outside Titans Tower by someone who looks like the Terminator, but supposedly the real one is in jail, awaiting trial. Lilith isn't acting herself and goes back to STAR Labs where she uses newly revealed heat powers to free the amnesiac winged alien from ice. The Titans try to stop her, but holding off her teammates with her new powers, she lets the winged man escape. The Titans, thinking the alien is to blame for Lilith's new powers and weird behavior, give chase but lose him. Then the trial of Slade Wilson gets underway, with Adrian "Vigilante" Chase as judge. 

I wonder how these 2 asynchronous Titans books were received at the time? It's nice that Wolfman weaves two stories of Lilith with weird powers and Azrael into both books that are supposed to take place months apart, but reading last month's NTT would have spoiled any mystery regarding Lilith's new powers or Azrael's intentions.

Shadow War of Hawkman #1: Isabella and Howell/Alcala bring back Hawkman and Hawkgirl who haven't had any solo appearances since the strip in World's Finest ended in '82. A group of Thanagarians arrive in Midway City and recruit a cat burglar to steal the Hawks' anti-gravity belts. Katar thwarts the robbery at their home, though Mousy is killed and the Thanagarians escape, teleporting to the museum. With Shayera still at the museum, Hawkman frantically flies back, but when he arrives, he finds the police outside and a scorch mark on the wall in the shape of his wife!

Superman: The Secret Years #4: Rozakis and Swan/Schaffenberger bring this limited series to a close. While Superboy grieves over his failure to save his parents, his foster parents, or Billy Cramer, Lex Luthor threatens all life on Earth unless his old foe meets him for a one-on-one fight. Perry White discovers Billy's whistle and figures out that it might be a way to summon Superboy back. Superboy heeds the call, and after defeating Luthor, who has found a way to give himself super-strength, he's found new confidence. He changes his name to Superman. As Clark Kent he graduates from Metropolis U with his friends. Then, he applies for a reporting job with the Daily Planet under its new editor, Perry.

This isn't a bad series, but I feel like it's let down a bit by the very Bronze Age style its creators are working in. Rozakis' plot is interesting but isn't as impactful as it could be due to its focus on done-in-one superhero storytelling. The Swan/Schaffenberger art isn't in layout or style positioned to wring the emotion from the material the plot suggests.

Vigilante 17: Alan Moore and Jim Baikie come on board for a late 70s-early 80s style neo-noir thriller. It's more the sort of story Miller did over at Daredevil than the more 80's action stuff Wolfman has done here (or would be done with the Punisher in the next few years). Chase gets a frantic call from Joanne Linnaker telling him her ex-husband Carl (who Chase prosecuted for abusing their daughter) is out on "good behavior" and possibly heading their way. By the time Vigilante arrives at her apartment, Joanne has been brutally murdered and her daughter, Jodie, has fled. 

She's found on the streets by a friendly drug-dealer named Fever and her prostitute roommate Louise. While Fever tries to negotiate Jodie's return to Chase without having her illegal activities exposed, Carl kills Louise and takes Jodie. Fever vows revenge and Vigilante acquiesces to her helping him track down Carl.

Weird Revisited: The Paper Town

This post originally appeared in May of 2016. It became relevant in last night's session of our Land of Azurth 5e game, so it seemed a good time to repeat it.

 

Paper Town (it is said) in some sense occupies space in the Uncanny Valley in the west of the Country of Yanth, but the most reliable way to gain entry to the town is via a map. Potentially any map will do, but it must be one noting a nonexistent settlement, street or island. These fictitious entries serve as gates to Paper Town.

As is common with magical places, gaining entrance is not as simple as finding a suitable map. Luckily, the legend regarding Paper Town's creation delineates the necessary procedure. Paper Town, as the story says, was a gift given to Princess Hyacinthia of Azurth on the occasion of her birthday by a mysterious stranger. He informed the Princess that she could not visit Paper Town in person, being compose of something other than paper and possessed of general lack of flatness as she was, but her shadow could—with the proper attire. The stranger traced the outline of the Princess’s shadow on a large sheet of paper and cut around its edge. The cutout was taken to a place where the stranger’s map showed a hamlet to be but was not. The cutout vanished, like a piece of paper slid under an unseen door into an equally unseen room.

The fact Hyacinthia never regain her shadow nor have many who have repeated this ritual might give some pause, but that detail is not frequently repeated.

In Paper Town, the cutouts become paper doll doppelgängers of the person that served as their model. These visitors find unfolding streets of pop-up trees and citizenry and flat facades that elaborate to Escher-architectured structures when entered. The city seems endless, but the clever observer will note that it recycles itself to appear so. As the preceding portion grows, the receding part folds up behind. This can happen in any direction: Tall towers erect themselves when an evil sorcerer flies up to his sanctum. Dungeons unfold like inverted houses of cards when heroes go delving. The ostensible ruler of Paper Town, Princess Seven, paper doll of the long dead Queen Hyacinthia, makes the final decision on how "permanent" a new structure is in her city.

One attractive trait of Paper Town is that it conforms to a visitor's imagination in certain ways. Anything one wishes for may be found there, though anything of value is likely to require a quest or be obtained in a way that makes one not want it after all. In other words, Paper Town adheres to laws of story.

The archons or godlings that truly rule Paper Town enforce this reality zealously. These Great Tall Tailors, or Scissor Men as they are sometime called, will catch paper doll visitors who are ill-fitted for the story the Tall Tailors wish told and snip, snap, snip, reshape them into a more pleasing arrangement. The Tall Tailors are paper themselves (Or perhaps they are the shapes left when slender, lank-limbed manshapes are cut of paper?) save for their gleaming, scissor hands. Their shadows are also Tailors but their shadow-scissors cut the spirit exclusively while their metallic doubles cut the physical.

It is said that the Book of Doors, a book where every page is a portal to another place, originated in Paper Town, but how it came to be in the wider Land of Aurth is unknown.

The Enterprise of (Un)Death

Don Maitz

In the Latter Ages of Earth, people do not die completely, at least not quickly. As these things are understood by the Instrumentality an imprint, an after-image, of a person remains in the Ancients' datasphere. When a Mind is informed by that record, a simulacrum, at least in part, of the deceased is made. This is a shade, though not in the way the superstitious common folk imagine. 

At its base, necromancy is the magical art of summoning and controlling shades. It's practice is watched closely by local authorities and the Instrumentality (in those areas where it holds sway). Being able to interact with the shades of the recently deceased is undeniably useful, not the least in forensic necromancy. Where necromancers primarily run afoul of the Instrumentality and temporal authorities is when they use their arts to create undead.

The criminal necromancer creates undead for two primary reasons. The first is for manual labor. These workers don't require a shade in the semblance of any particular person, so necromancers can pluck from the either degraded or partial shades; rudimentary data on physical movements is their primary concern. With a corpse as a substrate and sufficient art applied to their animation, a necromancer can turn out laborers for difficult conditions or troops whose shock value may compensate for their lack of intelligence and skill at arms.

The second application is more lucrative but requires more skill and time. That is the provision of immortality, or as close as their arts may come to it. This requires the creation of a specially made shade, imaged with precision from the current mental vector of the aspiring immortal. In the fallen Latter Age, this generally means destructive mapping of the individual's brain and its functioning. The intellect is then housed in a suitable, durable platform and placed within their old body. The body will inevitably decay, but the necromancer's arts can delay that decay, preserving function perhaps for millennia.  The culmination of these techniques is the lich, though botched jobs, and cost- or material-saving techniques have created many other variations, which are more common.

Wednesday Comics: Warlord (Omnibus) Wednesday

Though I've mentioned it before, I haven't talked about DC's Warlord by Mike Grell Omnibus Vol. 1 since it came out, which is kind of a lapse given how many years I spent blogging about Warlord here. This volume collects the character's debut in 1st Issue Special #8, issues #1-50 of the series, and material from Amazing World of DC Comics #12. Hopefully we'll get the rest of Grell's run and his follow-up series in a second volume.

The first thing one notices about this omnibus is how much lighter it feels than most. Opening it, you can see why: it's on a different type of paper than most omnis. When it came out, there was a lot of discussion of it being "on newsprint" with some fans angry it wasn't on the glossy paper they were expecting, and others appreciating it being closer in appearance to the original issues. Well, it isn't on newsprint, but it is on a slightly off-white paper with a matte finish. I'm sure I've seen some trade paperbacks from DC on this sort of paper before.

Here's some images I snagged from reddit:

And here's a comparison with the interiors of an old issue. The omni is on the right:

What is Known of the Mind Flayers

The malefic Outsiders of the astral void beyond the Earth are myriad in the Latter Age, but few are as distinct from the hosts of horrors as the beings known popularly as Mind Flayers.  Though they are believed to be long extinct, they still feature promptly in folklore and popular entertainments, attesting to their hold over humankind's collective imagination.

Little is known for certain about these beings. In Denizens of the Beyond by Pseudo-Vespydron, the most widely known work to examine them in detail, Mind Flayers are said to have come from the sphere of Mars, but whether they are natives to that world or from some even more distant home, even Denizens rather credulous author does not say. 

Pseudo-Vespydron uncritically accepts the cephalopod-headed humanoid appearance of popular portrayals and the idea that they were obligate consumers of human brains. The later (and comparatively more sober) histories of Malgrunda note no reliable descriptions of their physical form exist and put forward the theory that their purpose in preying upon the Earth was to acquire not foodstuffs but slave minds, derived from the destructive mapping of the brains of still-living captives. Perhaps the only place where she might be criticized in straying from established fact is in the time she devotes to Hseng's baseless assertion that the cephalopod skull is actually the memory of an environmental helmet with attached manipulators.

Druids of the Latter Age

 Contrary to the popular entertainments of the Latter Age, there is no cohesive group known as the druids. Rather, there are individuals and networks of individuals across several cultures that adhere to similar beliefs and practices. Though the Instrumentality labels druidism as heretical "Earth-worshippers," these practitioners generally no more worship the Earth Mother than the Instrumentality itself does.

Like the clerics of the Instrumentality, those that might be termed druids are aware to one degree or another that in more lucent ages the environment of the Earth and its citizens interaction with it were managed by a great Mind. This Mind is no more, at least not in any unified form (so the clerics believe), but the many of the component minds still haunt the world, and the particles of its sensory apparatus of that superintelligence still weave through the winds, fall with the rains, and course through the bloodstreams of animals. 

By means of secret lore and technology, the druids are able to converse and with the lesser minds that record and synthesize this sensory data. These processes are known as elementals. While the elementals occasionally form connections with more active systems on their own, the druid's involvement often bridges the two, giving the earth a voice to humankind that dwells upon it. Like the magi, druids are at times able to command the remnant nanotechnological systems, though how they achieve these powers is a closely guarded secret. Among their more impressive abilities, they can cause avatars to be instantiated from natural features for short periods of time or effect change in local weather patterns.

Unlike the Instrumentality, the druids do not believe that the Gaean mind is irrevocably destroyed. Instead, they view her as suffering from an illness, and illness from which they work to help her recover. They don't seek the re-ascendence of humankind, but rather the restoration of a balance they feel the Ancients achieved but then squandered.