Differentiating Science Fantasy

Often science fantasy as operationalizes in rpgs is just some flavor of rpg fantasy with ray guns or robots, or "ancient technology" as the default explanation for something strange. (In fact, high tech "science" often  becomes the extraordinary thing in a setting full of magic but completely conventional in its portrayal of magic.) There isn't anything wrong with that, but science fantasy fiction points the way to making the genre feel different from a fantasy setting that just also has some lost tech.

More Psychic than Spellcraft

The magical effects (when they aren't technology mimicking magic) often tend to resemble psychic powers instead of spells or rituals.

Non-Medieval Society

In C.S. Friedman Coldfire series, the owners of a bookshop who are the victim of an attack by the magical agents of a dark lord of sorts have to worry the authorities will think they committed insurance fraud. There's no reason a science fantasy setting has to limit itself to mixing science fiction and the (pseudo-)Medieval. Elements of any era could be fair game, depending on the setting.

Device Dependent

In science fantasy, more magical effects are going to be the use of a device or chemical rather than a spell. A Polymorph effect, for instance, can still exist, but it would be from a transformation machine or "atavism ray" or the like. A variant on this is when a classical magic item turns out to be a technological device, like when Travis Morgan's putting a bullet into Deimos' crystal ball and we see circuitry inside.

Subtle Reminders 

Little details that point to the nature of the setting often help set the mood. Post-apocalypses (fantasy and otherwise) tend to excel at this. King's Dark Tower stories have a witch writing a note on an old Citgo receipt pad, for instance, but having an old device put to a new purpose is a device that works in science fantasy too.

Consistency

While in many situations "science vs. magic" in a fantastic context would just be cosmetic, it's important to keep in mind the different origins and make sure the details match. For instance, orcs that are embodied spirits of evil ought to operate differently in any number of ways compared to orcs who are a transplanted, anthrophagous alien species or orcs that are bioengineered servitors.

Moon Melee

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last Sunday with the party concluding their brief trip to the Moon. The Bright Goddess of the Thrice Thousand had granted their request for one of the "tears of Azulina" (celestial sapphires, some of which were allegedly used by the Wizard to grow the Sapphire City of Azurth), but they would have to get it from the Faceless Collector who the Bright Goddess had just given it to.

The Collector agreed to hand it over, but only if the party bested him, and his servitor in combat. The party agreed and the match began. The servitor proved to be a hulking robot with a sword and machine gun army, though this was not a fight to the death. The Collector had psionic powers and a golden scimitar.

The party one out in the end, likely due to their superior numbers, but Erekose and Waylon took quite a bruising. 

True to his word, the Collector handed over the sapphire. The party was guided out of the goddess' gardens and back to their ship. The return flight was mercifully uneventful.

The gnomic technicians in the service of Viola, the Clockwork Princess of Yanth, put their science to work and blasted the petrified princesses with the sapphire's radiation. The stone around them crumbled and beneath they were their normal selves.

As soon as she was able, Viola said: "I've just determined a way we can defeat the wizard."

Wednesday Comics: DC, March 1985 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands in the week of December 6, 1984. 

The "Meanwhile..." column in these issues discusses upcoming limited series. A Frank Miller Batman story, and a pitch by Alan Moore originally involving the Charlton characters, which Giordano declined to let be used, so instead it will use new characters.

Vigilante 15: Cullins is on pencils this issue with Maygar/Kesel inks. Wolfman is trying to put distance between the position of Vigilante and the more bloodthirsty vigilante Electrocutioner, so we get the story of a circus clown who resorts to bankrobbery to pay his wife's medical bills. The sympathy his case generates gets him acquitted, which Chase (and Vigilante) thinks is justice done, but the Electrocutioner sees him as another criminal let loose be a corrupt system and goes after him. Vigilante and the other circus performers intervene to save the clown's life.

Funny Stuff Stocking Stuffer #1: Funny Stuff was a DC funny animal comic that ran from 1944-1954, at which point it became Dodo and Frog and went another 3 years. In this special, Engel and Tiefenbacher (with some additional scripting from Kupperberg) bring back a number of these characters (including Frog and Dodo) is a story involving the Ground Hog trying to usurp Christmas for his own. Thanks to the Captain Carrot series, some of these characters had been retconned on to Earth-C, so I guess that's where this story takes place.

Superman: The Secret Years #2: Another Frank Miller cover. Rozakis and Swan/Schaffenberger continue the story of Clark's college years in Metropolis. In the wake of Ducky's accident, Clark is having nightmares about that as well as his parents' deaths. As Superboy, he investigates the Bermuda Triangle and discovers a space-warp that leads to an island where people lost in plane and ship accidents have created a peaceful existence, and don't want to go back to their former homes. Clark Kent meets and begins dating Lori Lemaris, and gets a new roommate and friend in the former of Billy Cramer. Ultimately, Clark reveals his secret identity to him. 

Atari Force #15: Baron and Barreto have Scanner One land on a planetoid and find themselves beset by a swarm of tenacious and tough insectoid creatures that impair the ship. They must resort to sending Babe out of on a mission to get them free. Meanwhile, Morphea discovers that Blackjak has some remnant of something evil within his head. 

In the backup by Helfer and Chen, we get a solo Pakrat story. On a job to steal some diamonds, he just may have met his match in a female Markian thief.

DC Comics Presents #79: To alien gamblers duplicate Superman so that one duplicate can be Clark Kent and one can be Superman at a time to wager on the outcome. It takes the Supermen/Clarks a bit to figure out what's going on, but then they play good cop/bad cop (with Clark the bad cop) to get the aliens to undo what they have done.

Fury of Firestorm #33: The Conway/Kayanan team is back together, and they pit Firestorm against Flambeau and his terrorist group who hope to force the government to release Plastique by threatening to burn Manhattan. Firestorm almost stops them but accidentally touches off at least a smaller conflagration accidentally. Meanwhile, scientist Lorraine Lincoln, haunted by nightmares regarding her former friend Crystal Frost, pushes her team to recreate the experiment which went wrong to produce the original Killer Frost, probably with the same result, but we'll find out next issue.

Justice League of America #236: Conway and Patton/Maygar bring their initial introductory arc to an end, with a confrontation between the League and Overmaster and the Cadre. The Overmaster claims to be millions of years old and responsible for the previous mass extinction events on Earth, and he's itching for another one. The new League is almost defeated, but Gypsy shows up with Dale Gunn. She's able to get to the mysterious glowing jewel floating about the head of a slumbering giant alien the League found, and apparently this leads to the villains being enveloped in a bright light and vanishing. Heading home, the group theorizes that the giant was the source of Overmaster's power with the latter being some sort of parasite with delusions of grandeur who created the Cadre to make his dream come true. As they watch, the mountain they escaped reveals itself to be a space vehicle as it rockets away from Earth.

New Teen Titans #6: Wolfman and Jurgens/Tanghal have the Titans receiving the adulation of the citizens of New York City after their defeat of Trigon. The Titans are still dealing with the traumatic fallout from what they experienced, though, and no one knows where Raven is. At Terry's suggestion, the Titans again go on a camping trip to give them a chance to talk and share their emotional burdens.

Longhaul

All the interstellar Science Fiction roleplaying systems and settings I can think of rely on faster-than-light travel (generic systems like GURPs or Hero System discuss the option of forgoing it, but I don't think either devote much space to it) and fairly rapid FTL, at that. It isn't surprising; most starfaring sci-fi literature does so as well. 

There are hard(er) sci-fi writers that generally adhere to a more realistic, slower than light universe, like Alistair Reynolds, Greg Egan or Charles Stross. Reynolds' star travelers enter cyrogenic "reefer sleep" to handle the years long voyages in "lighthuggers." Stross and Egan in some of their stories have digital minds broadcast across the distance as light to be reconstituted at the receiving end.

There are also works with sort of slow FTL, so that voyages still require years. Ruocchio's Sun Eater series has characters entering cryogenic fugue to pass the years. Simmons' Hyperion Cantos has FTL that still results in time dilation so ship time is less than the years than pass for observers.

It strikes me that whatever the method, space travel that takes long periods of time, and where the traveler is somehow able to personally elide the effects of so much time passing (either through cryogenics, weird time effects, or even just posthuman immortality) would make for an interesting aspect to a setting and campaign.

The PCs might set out as smugglers or free traders with valuable cargo for a 20-year voyage (from the perspective of the destination) and arrive to find the market had changed or a natural disaster had ruined their chances for making the sale. Mercenary PCs hired for a job, could find the government they were sent to defend toppled by the time they arrive or the person they were to report to succeeded by someone less friendly. 

Both of these changes are bad for the PCs, but they could have just as easily been advantageous. The point is with years or decades passing, the setting should hardly stay static. I think this would have the effect of modifying PC behavior a bit. It would make them take space travel less for granted, for one thing. Trips between worlds are no longer trivial. Two, even with cryogenesis or the like, long travel times would make PC aging meaningful.

Using a series of random tables to accomplish these changes would of course include the GM in the fun of discovery. A dynamic setting is often, I think, a more alive feeling one than a static one.

Wednesday Comics: Gift Suggestions 2025

 Looking for a gift for a comic book fan you know (even if that fan is yourself)? Here are my recommendations for you to consider.

Absolute Martian Manhunter vol 1: Martian Vision

In the only one of the Absolute books that really caught me interest, Martian Manhunter is re-envisioned as a sort of memetic lifeform that invades the mind of FBI agent John Jones in a psychedelic story about alien invasion and family, among other things, by Camp and Rodriquez. This is, unfortunately, only the first 6 issues of the series, so not a complete story, but worth it, if only for Rodriquez's artwork.

Avengers: The Veracity Trap

I reviewed this gorgeous volume by Kidd and Cho here. The Avengers brawl with a host of Kirby-style Marvel monsters, courtesy of Loki, but soon develops in an even more metatextual direction as Thor pursues Loki outside the realm of the comic. The Avengers soon must come to terms with the sense-shattering reality of their existence and the fictional counterparts of Kidd and Cho finding the story becoming all too real!

Bug Wars Book One: Lost in the Yard

Teenager Slade Slaymaker, son of an entomologist who died under mysterious circumstances, finds himself shrunk and thrown in among warring tribes of diminutive insect-riding humanoids having epic battles in his unkept backyard!

Ad copy calls this "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Conan," but I feel like Aaron and Asrar are fulfilling the promise of Sword of Atom or the Hulk stories set in Jarella's world in a gritter, modern way. The thought but into the various cultures of the yard is one of my favorite parts.

Drome

This one has got a fair amount of buzz online, and I think with good reason. Check out my review here. Lonergan weaves a creation myth in a world part Kirby's New Gods and part Metal Hurlant in a unique style.

Hobtown Mystery Stories

The release of volume three "The Secret of the Saucer" just this week has given me the only excuse I need to put this series on the list again this year. Bertin and Forbes created a series that is sort of "Twin Peaks meets the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew" as teens in a small, coastal Canadian town uncover weirdness.

Marvel Age of Comics

I wrote about the Mighty Avengers volume in this series here. It's the only one I've read so far of these 33 1⁄3 explorations of Marvel history, but it got me interested in reading more.

The Seasons Vol. 1

Young Spring Seasons is the last hope to save her sisters and parents from the grip of sinister carnival that invades their home town. This series by Remender, Alzaceta and Lopez has been called a "dark fairytale" and "whimsical horror," which seem apt descriptors. Remender has said The Adventures of Tintin and the works of Miyazaki were inspirations, which I can also see, particularly the former as it seems a very "European style" comic to me

Clerics vs. Posthumans

Technology vs. magic, sometimes even to the point of a war, in a feature of a number of fantasy works, though I'm not aware of a published D&D setting that features it. 

Some science fiction settings have cultural/religious limits on technology, either as one facet of the setting or as a means for the author to keep technology in check to tell the sort of story they want to tell. Dune is the primary example, but there are series like the Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio that follow its lead, and other settings that make it a feature. A more recent variant is a group or culture that rejects the rapid changes associated with things like cybertechnology and brain uploading. This shows up in Stross' Accelerando.

I think it would be interesting to sort of combine these concepts. Have the action take place within a fantasy world (perhaps a fairly standard one, or maybe a Spelljammer-ish system), but the demons, devils, and other Outsiders trying to get in and corrupt the world (at least from the perspective of the world's clerics and leaders who consuder them anathema) are actually posthuman intelligences that utilize technology, not magic. Presumably, "magic" (whatever it is) was what allowed these simple, unenhanced humanoids to hold on in a universe of much more powerful sophonts. The Outer Planes (as they view) them are really just planets, habitats or networks.

Of course, whether the Outsiders are really baddies would depend on the specifics of the setting--or maybe even be open to interpretation?

Challenge on the Moon

 Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last Sunday with the party trying to get to the Bright Rabbit Goddess of the Moon to ask her for a particular jewel that might be the key to saving Azurth's princesses from the petrification the evil Wizard had put on them. 

After several weird encounters in the fae lunar gardens, the party encountered one of the Rabbit Folk working in a fissure in the Moon's surface on the vast gearworks beneath.  He told them the gears controlled the movement of the gigantic, black tarpaulin that was drawn across the Moon's surface, causing its phases as observed from Earth, so that the lunar folk could have some privacy.

 He tells them that reaching the primary garden and the Goddess requires not thinking about going there. Sort of unfocus your eyes, he says, and the path will become clear. Only two of the party are able to accomplish this, but they can lead the other members on. 

They are greeted by a major domo in a ruff collar and fancy dress who listens to their concerns and puts their names on a list to see the Goddess. Then he ushers them off to one of the few empty tables in the expansive, side garden to wait.

Trying to figure out a way to get in sooner, they strike up a conversation with a young woman who claims to be from Mercury. She offers them a letter of introduction from the Empire of Mercury, which they accept but are too wary to use. 

They decide to ask the major domo if there might be some sort of inducement they could provide to get in sooner. He happily tells them that the Moon is mad for the more advanced gadgetry of Earth. They give him a stopped pocket watch (right twice a day!) that used to belong to the young Roderick Drue, who eventually became the Wizard. Or some version of him did, anyway.

They are whisked in to see the Goddess who is sympathetic to their plight. Unfortunately, she just granted the sapphire to a Faceless Collector from the Outer Worlds. Maybe they can convince him to give it to them?

The Collector, a cool, emotionless humanoid with knowledge of time, says he will give it them if they can defeat him and his servitor in combat...