The Planes of Exalted [Exalted/D&D Mashup]

Some thoughts on social media by Jack Shear reminded me of this old post, with Jack suggesting replacing elements of the Exalted setting with rough analogs from D&Ds implied setting. As most things D&Dish do, this inevitably got my thinking about the planes and how one could break the Great Wheel in Exaltedish pieces. 5e's cosmology even starts doing some of the work.

Yu-Shan: Exalted's Heaven, a continent-sized city. Much of it would resemble part's of D&D's Mount Celestia, but some of it's nation-sized parks would be like The Beastlands. The Celestial Bureaucracy would have elements of Mechanus (including Modrons and Inevitables).

The Wyld: The Chaos outside and encrouching on Creation. Pure Chaos is probably not something worth getting into (maybe it's like the D&D Far Realm?), but the middlemarches are like D&D's Limbo and home to Slaadi. Maybe there is an area of Pandemonium, too. We might as well call the bordermarches the Feywild, but they also include elements of Arborea the "deeper" you get.

The Underworld: This occupies the position in relation to the Prime Material Plane/Creation as the Shadowfell, but they term should be applied to the areas Exalted calls Shadowlands, where the Underworld and the Prime overlap. The Underworld proper should get a lot of Hades/Grey Wastes stuff, and beneath it is Oblivion, the Negative Energy Plane.

Malfeas: The prison of the Yozi's (the Primordials betrayed by the gods) would by the repository of much of the Lower Planes stuff: the Abyss, Carceri, and the Nine Hells. The Law and Chaos division of these worlds in D&D terms would be a hindrance to making them more like Exalted, so maybe that's dropped, or maybe demons and devils are different factions of Yozi.

Autochthonia: The world within the body of the Primordial Autochthon. Mechanus is a better name for this god and this place anyway, so whatever Mechanus stuff wasn't shunted to Yu-Shan should be here. Also, some of the old quasi- and para-elemental planes would be the elemental "reserviors" of this world (Smoke, Radiance, Lightning, Mineral, etc.)

Weird Revisited: Do You Have Alignment or Does It Have You?

Recent discussion of alignment on discord brought to mind this post from 2014...

What follows is some brainstorming on a conception of alignment that probably just over-complicates things, but hopefully will be of some interest to somebody.

As we all know, alignment is derived from Moorcock and Anderson and is suppose to provide some moral and ethical structure to--well, the universe--and to provide a behavioral check on certain character types, but any attempt to relate it to actual moral quandaries, leads to discussion of baby orcs. Some people (myself included) have suggested at times the obvious solution of just viewing the sides as teams or opposing armies free of a moral dimension, but mostly it seems like people just ignore it. While I'm still advocating for a bit of blue and orange morality here, I want to suggest another wrinkle.

I recently finished the third of Hannu Rajaniemi's science fiction novels, The Causal Angel. One of the futuristic societies, the zoku, tend to form group minds, but individuals joining one or more zoku (Japanese for "clan") related hobbies, interests, or vocation. This process involves "entanglement," a sort of co-mingling of though and desires. The higher one's rank (i.e. the longer one is a member or the more "good" they do for the group) the more entanglement the individual becomes and so the more their thoughts and desires are reflected in the group consensus and action, or "volition." This effect is reciprocal, though, so the higher rank, the more one's on thoughts and actions are shaped by the zoku volition.

Maybe alignments could be a bit like that? Joining up with a fundamental metaphysical power of the universe means getting benefits (positive reaction, access to power) but also means you lose a bit of your individuality (or at least have that individuality altered). for someone powered by alignment (a paladin, a cleric), the higher level you become the worse it gets. A high level Paladin would be unlikely to worry about straying from their alignment; they would become one with it, or at least part of it.

This would make adhering to any alignment sort of like bartering your soul for magical power. The only difference is, with bartering your soul you are still quite aware you've given something up. With this approach, it would get harder and harder to ever imagine yourself doing anything differently.

This of course means that gods and other beings of great power and strong alignment allegiance have probably become more or less avatars for the consensus overmind/soul of the alignment.

Combat as (Blood) Sport

A common reframe in the old school landscape is "Combat as War vs. Combat as Sport," often used to negatively contrast elements of 5e and particularly 4e concerned with encounter balance an "the encounter" as a fundamental unit of game action in general with the old school. Without getting into the merits of how this argument is typically framed, I think that even if we accept this as true, there is a way to lean into those elements of modern D&D and come out with something cool. Instead dungeoncrawling for treasure (mainly), maybe the dungeon environment could be the battleground of a big tournament.

X-Crawl deals with some of this territory, I guess, but from what I read of it, it is set in the modern day, and seems very much concerned with the celebrity aspect of things, bringing in a lot of professional athlete cliches. All well and good, but I'm more interested in something more like Dragonball Z. The fighters are in it often for the personal betterment--a personal betterment that is practically apotheosis, which dovetails nicely with D&D advancement. What if the gods or Immortals or whatever design the dungeons as tournament grounds, and foundries to forge new Immortals to join there ranks?

In this context, the lack of XP for gold makes perfect sense. Also, "levels" of dungeons are likes brackets of a tournament. In order to give a good spectacle, you don't want scrubs advancing to take on the contenders too soon. Mainly playing this sort of setting would just mean thinking about the game differently. The only change might be that there would be fewer nameless rabbles or humanoid tribes with young and the like. Everybody in the dungeon is playing the game.

Weird Revisted: The Weird Frontier

The original version of this post first appeared in 2010. I've revisited it from slightly different angles a couple of times since.
 

This cover deserves to be the basis of an rpg setting.

Well, maybe not just this cover all on its own, but the crazy idea it and the series (Tomahawk) it's a part of suggests (at least to me)--namely, combining the James Fenimore Cooper-style frontier tale with fantasy. Transplanting the whole civilization-against-the-wilderness thing to a colonial pseudo-America.

It’s almost completely unmined territory. It’s only been sort of attempted once, as far as I know--Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series does early nineteenth century fantasy in an alternate North America. Sure, one could point to novels (and even an rpg or two) with a kind of “Illuminati/Masonic magic behind the revolution” or a “Ben Franklin cavorts with the Hellfire Club” sort of deal, but all of that pseudo-historical “hidden magic” speculation fails to deliver a moment of rpg inspiration Zen like:

Wilderness adventures wouldn’t be the only way to go. Surely things like Mystery Hill, and the rampant speculation such sites inspired (even at the time) ought to suggest plenty of ancient American civilization to provide honest to goodness dungeons. There might not be demi-humans (though there could be), but all the other standard D&D ingredients are easy to find.

Weird Revisited: The Gods Themselves

This post originally appeared in June 2014.

I've being thinking on the idea that all deities in fiction can be defined by two axes: Mythological-Literal and Transcendent-Physical. Mythological gods have origins and interactions that don't make sense in a literal sense; Think gods born from salt licks or jumping from their fathers' skulls. On the other end of the scale are literal beings whose origins are at least logical and generally pretty much biologically or technologically similar to other classes of lifeforms. Transcendent beings are bound by the usual limitations of single body, mind, and/or perspective, while physical beings certainly are.

The gods from the Greek or Norse mythology are typically mythological, but either physical or transcendent. (They tend to be physical seeming in the texts of the myths, but seem somewhat transcendent in terms their actual historical worship.) 

The Asgardians of Marvel Comics or Apollo of the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonis?" are mostly literal and mostly physical in portrayal. The Asgardians of the movie Thor and its sequel are entirely literal and physical.

AI masquerading as gods? Literal, transcendent or physical. 

The Endless from Sandman? Straddling the literal-mythologic border, transcendent. 

Kirby's New Gods? Slightly mythological, physical.

So there it is. There may be other factors I haven't thought of.

Everything Goes Better with Ravenloft

Well, maybe not everything, but I think Ravenloft could mix with several of the other D&D settings like chocolate and peanut butter.

Art by Bruce Pennington

Blood Red Sun [Dark Sun/Ravenloft]
Some Dying Earth stories have more than a touch of the Gothic to them (Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories immediately come to mind), so this is really a natural. As the sun dimmed and sputtered, the Dark Powers grew stronger and fed upon the energy of the planet, slowing leeching it of life. Replace the sorcerer-kings with the Dark Lords, and (probably) loose the mists. Some tweaking of the domains might be in order, to make them a little less Dracula and a little bit more Vathek, but that's up to you.

Planet of the Vampires [Spelljammer/Ravenloft]
Each domain is a world, and the mists and phlogiston are combined into one. Maybe give Spelljammer more of a 18th Century or even Victorian vibe: Combine Kipling (his sci-fi stories like "With the Night Mail" and his horror yarns) with Stoker.

And why limit myself to AD&D settings?

Terror Under the Eternal Sun [Hollow World/Ravenloft]
I'm thinking ditch most of the Hollow World idea, except for it being the repository of things preserved from the outer world. Take it back to it's Burroughsian roots and have a land of dinosaurs and mostly primitive peoples, except for these areas and mists containing weird, otherworld realms of madness. Probably the realms of dreads should be a bit smaller, maybe just a castle and a village in some cases. Like Turok meets Dracula.

The Charmed Life of an Adventurer

"Prophecies and charms marked his face, talismans against attacks from animals, demons, and men."
- Brian Catling, The Vorrh

Some editions of D&D have felt suggested magic items were required equipment at certain levels. Even before that, the fact that you could sell magic items suggested the existence of places they might be bought: Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. Neither of these facts have ever sat well with some people, who view these as part of a mundanifying, possibly even industrializing of magic. In general, I would count myself among them, though it depends on the setting, really.

There is a way to have common magic items without sucking the mysticism and mystery out of them and raising the specter of industrialization. That would be to replace many magic items with with charms or fetishes. Charms (and blessings) are mentioned in the 5e DMG , but they are envisioned as short-term or single issue enchantments on an individual. I think they could be applied to items, though they still might be single or short-term use to differentiate them from standard magic items.

There might be other differences:

• They would appear more like art objects than practical tools, though they might also be laid into practical tools (or people) with markings/runes.
• They could be acquired at shops, but they would generally bespoke, not bought off a shelf (though some might be).
• They would be pretty common, almost ubiquitous among adventurers, but they would be more specialized. Instead of a Ring of Protection, their might be a talisman of protection against weapons, one against magical attacks, one against the claws and teeth of beasts. (This approach would require more record-keeping, but might or might not be worth it.)

A lot of the adventurer's acquired wealth would go into buying new or longer lasting charms. Healing potions could stay potions, but they could be replaced with poultices or talismans instead. Maybe their would be a mixture of both, and could be purchased. "True" (permanent) magic items would be rarer, and perhaps only found among the ruins of the past. They would almost never be sold.

The Genre of D&D Art?

Jason "Dungeon Dozen" Sholtis and I were talking the other day, after we both watched Eye of the Beholder, the new documentary on D&D artists (which you should see too). Jason was skeptical of the idea (mentioned in the documentary) that "D&D art" was a genre, instead viewing it as part of the wider field of fantasy illustration. I put forward an argument, that he found at least somewhat convincing, that D&D (or rpg) art, might at least constitute a subgenre of fantasy art, and that it could be identified by its tendency to emphasis certain traits across several editions. Here are the traits I came up with:

Prosaic or Humorous Scenes
While fantasy illustration is no stranger to humor or protagonists that are less than competent, but not large than life, these sorts characters are depicted in a higher proportion of D&D art.

More Detail on Monsters
Monsters in much traditional (pre-D&D) fantasy illustration are best described as "phantasmagoric" or fanciful, charitably--and perhaps even outright goofy. D&D monsters are not always anatomically or realistically considered but they are generally detailed and usually dynamic.

Placing the Viewer with the Protagonists
The eye of the viewer is often positioned as if they might be a companion of the pictured protagonists or at least a close observer, rather than viewing the action at a remove. The primary focus then is often placed on the antagonist (or monster) rather than the heroes.

Emphasis on Small Groups Rather than Individuals or Clashing Armies
This one is obvious due to the "party" structure of rpgs, and it is perhaps the one most frequently supported by the art. The party is often displaying teamwork.

Anyway, I think those sort of make the point. I do think there are some others regarding costuming and composition of scenes, but these are the ones I feel most certain about. Of course, there is a lot D&D art that don't show these characteristics and there is some non-rpg fantasy illustration that does. These are really about tendencies, not absolutes.

The Dungeon That is Never Cleared

I'm sure there are the exceptions, but it seems like that Gygax-approved secondary goal of dungeoncrawling is to clear dungeons to make the land safe for decent folk or something like that. I don't know how much that's that's done these days, but at least dungeon rooms and levels are cleared to allow safe havens/base camps.

What if the dungeon were so alien that sort of thing were unlikely? A dungeon could be looted, but it never could be tamed. This wouldn't mean that the dungeon is static or unchangeable by adventurers, just that it would always retain its essential, deadly, character.

I've been reading The Vorrh by Brian Catling, a novel which has at its center (sort of) the eponymous, immense, ancient forest that is steals people's memories and is supposedly uncrossable. I'm also thinking of the toxic, alien nature of the Zones in Roadside Picnic.

Maybe a mythic underworld as hostile as either of these, would be a bit too much of a killer dungeon (but then again, maybe not) but some movement in this direction might be interesting. In both cases, the appropriate sort of preparation might be key. In the Roadside Picnic case, that means good intel and appropriate gear. In the case of the more mystical Vorrh, it might involve a separate quest to get the needed knowledge, blessing, or key.

Philotomy in his off-quoted "Musings" got it, particularly if we go light on "versimilitude" and allow just enough "internal consistency" for player choices to be meaningful:

"...a megadungeon should have a certain amount of verisimilitude and internal consistency, but it is an underworld: a place where the normal laws of reality may not apply, and may be bent, warped, or broken. Not merely an underground site or a lair, not sane, the underworld gnaws on the physical world like some chaotic cancer.   

It is inimical to men; the dungeon, itself, opposes and obstructs the adventurers brave enough to explore it."

The Planes of Chaos

Discussing cosmogony with an being of chaos, much less a Chaos Lord, is likely to lead only to more confusion. Linear logic, causality, even truth, are concepts beings of Chaos find unnecessarily limiting. Turning to their sacred writ (such as there is) will be of little help, either. The Hymn to Perplexity is composed entirely of questions and no answers.

Still, when they choose to, the ancient monsters and angels of Chaos remember the Godhead, the One that encompassed all. It was no more Order than Disorder, no more Constant than Mutable. If there was a Fall, it was Chaos that was indistinguishable in any meaningful way from what came before; It is Law that is the aberration. And even that aberration was born of Chaos.

Limbo is akin to what the multiverse was before Mechanus, before time existed. It is primordial soup from which any concept or being might be instantiate.  Chaos did not remain untainted by Law, however. Form, causality and other concepts gave shape to the previously formless. The border regions coalesced into something different.

Arborea is the home of beings who revel in the the gratification of the senses. They seek to woo other souls to throw off the shackles of Law and experience the pleasures of greater freedom. They never coerce beings into accepting their gifts (such would be a violation of freedom), but mortal souls may not be prepared for the experiences they offer.

The sad, dangerous monsters of the Abyss cling only to the concept of Self. The entirety of cosmos is merely an insufferable dream they can never wake up from. They torment or toy with other beings, even other demons, in attempts to exorcise their irritation. They are seldom successful.

Azurth Mailbag: Death & Mayhem

This may well become a recurring feature here, assuming I get other Land of Azurth-related questions. Jason Sholtis of Pennsylvania asks: "How do you deal with D&D style violence and mayhem in Azurth and how does it support or thwart the tone?"

D&D is often characterized as "killing things and taking their stuff" and old school play at least tends to to pride itself on "high lethality." Neither of these things seem Azurthian at first blush, given the stated inspirations, so I understand why Jason might question how it all fits together.

First off, my Land of Azurth campaign is run in 5e, which is a bit more forgiving and less lethal (for the players) than older editions. This suits our campaign just fine.

Secondly, Azurth is a D&D world with those sorts of inspirations. It doesn't have an Ozian lack of death, for one thing. Azurth isn't a grim or dark world in any sense, but it's a bit like the Land of Ooo from Adventure Time! in that it is not as saccharine as it might appear on the surface. (And unlike the Land of Ooo, it doesn't have to hold the violence to levels acceptable to Broadcast Standards and Practices.)

I think there's fun in juxtaposing the children's book sort of elements with mayhem, but without doing a "dark" take in the traditional sense. So yes, the D&Dish mayhem thwarts the kiddie nature of some seting elements, but the setting keeps the action of the campaign form devolving into just another D&D world. They work well together.

Do you have a question? Leave it in the comments or email me.

On the Nature of Planes

Discussion around my last couple of posts got me to thinking about planes and how one might present them. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do it, but I think certain approaches imply certain things more than others.

There  may well be interpretations other than the three I've presented below, but hopefully this will delineate where the key differences lie.

First, here are the traits I'll use to describe them:

• Physical worlds are composed of matter and energy, physics and biology,  and function similarly to our own, though may in some ways be alien. Physical worlds in are generally finite, though they may reside in an infinite substrate (like the astral plane or space of some sort).
• Metaphysical worlds mimic physical worlds in some ways, but aren't really fully natural or "functional." Examples would include pop conceptions of Heaven (a bunch of solids clouds, with some angels and a set of golden gates) and Hell (a cavernous realm of fire). In literary fantasy settings (be they trad fantasy, pulp science fiction, or superheroes), the difference between physical worlds and metaphysical ones may only be discernible by context. Metaphysical worlds may be finite or infinite, but if they are infinite they are likely only notionally so--characters are always tend to show up "where the action is."
• A fixed reality is one where things appear to obey mundane physical laws, with exceptions for magic or special powers. The local laws might differ from the primary world's, but they are still rules that govern most everyone.
• A mutable reality is more dream-like or the power of one or more beings to manipulate its nature is so significant that things can't be taken for granted.

Planets/Worlds/"Alien Sphere": Physical spaces, whatever their actually shape/structure that exist either in the same universe as the primary world of the setting or accessible universes. In fact, they may be the other universe, made up of a number of sub-worlds. The world or universe may be reached or traversed by strictly physical means, but often can only be accessed by some sort of special device or power.
Traits: Generally physical and fixed.
Examples: Marvel's Microverse and Negative Zone; the Marvel Cinematic Universe's version of the Nine Realms; perhaps Yag ("Tower of the Elephant") and other mystically described planets in pulp fiction.

Conceptual Realms: Generally supernatural places of supernatural beings, often arranged in levels or perhaps energy states. They are typically reached by magical or esoteric means, but the magical means may be as simple as walking through a seemingly mundane door or gate. Some can't be visited by physical bodies, but only by spirits, astral forms, or the like.
Traits: Metaphysical and (mostly) fixed.
Examples: various after-lifes, places where demons and gods dwell; The Realm of Dream from Sandman; The Matrix and other virtually reality realms are non-supernatural examples.

Gygaxian Esoteric Planes: Places that often bear the names and some of the characteristics of various historical conceptual realms but are more defined in their characteristics. They are inhabited by supernatural beings that tend to behave like mundane beings, the only difference being "power." Geography tends to be more important than in conceptual realms; planes can be mapped to a degree, and travel along associated terrain may be necessary.
Traits: Physical or Metaphysical, mostly fixed but can be mutable.
Examples: The Great Wheel as presented in AD&D or the 4e Cosmology; Marvel Comic's version of the Nine Realms in Thor.

At first blush, one might suggest the Gygaxian Esoteric Planes are just conceptual realms adapted to the requirements of a game, but I don't think this is the case. In the same way old school games are able to support a more mutable, fantastic, mythical underworld, they could also support conceptual realms (indeed, some rpgs already have them as background elements), but for whatever reason, Gygax and his successors chose not to portray most of the Great Wheel that way. Similarly, weird or magical planets were hardly unknown in the source literature D&D was drawn from (and would eventually show up in Planescape and Pathfinder's Golarion Solar System), but this wasn't the path chosen for D&D either.

Whether the rejection of these options was a misstep or an innovation, depends on your point of view.

Dungeons of High Camp Revisited

Art by Jim Holloway

This is an update to a post from 2017, originally conceived as I was reading Hero A Go-Go by Michael Eury. That book chronicles superhero comics' response (and influence on) 1960s camp pop culture. It's a combination that didn't always work well; many of the works now seem more goofy kitsch perhaps, and some are really just unfunny parody of superheroes. Still, when it works there is a certain charm to a lot of folks, as the revival comics Batman '66 and Wonder Woman '77 indicate.

I wonder why there hasn't been as much of a concerted attempt at published camp works for Dungeons & Dragons? Certainly, farcical humor abounds at the gaming table, and a number of comedic adventures have been written (a lot illustrated by Jim Holloway), in fact a couple of my Hydra colleagues have been taken to task for humorous elements in their work. There are, of course, humorous illustrations in the older AD&D books. But as far as I know, there has never been a camp setting or camp-informed setting--unless maybe HackMaster counts? Maybe it's just too difficult an approach to sustain well throughout a written project?

I should back up a bit here and define what I mean by "camp," since it's not a term with a universal, clear definition. What I mean in this case, is not the farce or cheese, but a sort of knowing amusement. An "engaged irony." As Isherwood would have it: "you’re not making fun of it; you’re making fun out of it." The "it" in our case being elfgames.

The settings of some OSR-related folks seem to me to have elements of camp without going all-in: Jason Sholtis' Operation Unfathomable, Chris Kutalik's Hill Cantons, some of Jeff Reints stuff, and my own Mortzengersturm. Dungeon Crawl Classics with its "airbrushed wizard van" elements could be taken as camp, but I'm unsure whether that is the intention.

Art by Jim Holloway

Just Another Omniverse Monday

Gameroom in Progress.

I spent most of my weekend packing books and assembling a new gaming table, so all I've got for you today is two new previously only available on Google Plus Omniverse posts.

These delve into the lesser known periods: the secret vigilante past of the future Commissioner Gordon of Gotham and the heroes who combated the monster surge of the 1950s, the Monster Hunters.

Through A Superhero Lens

One of the charming (to me) things about Silver Age/Bronze Age comics is that often series with settings and elements of other genres have a superhero veneer. Either the creators though that was what the audience wanted, or that's just the vernacular they were used to expressing themselves in. Define "superhero" elements, you ask? Well, things like code names, secret identities, costumes, costumed villains with themes or motifs, and of course, super-powers. Not all of these are present in every case, of course, and some of the elements were part of the pulp or adventure hero tradition prior to superheroes. By the 60s, though, superheroes were the most conspicuous purveyors of those tropes.

This doesn't just show up in comics. Hanna-Barbera's Mighty Mightor (1967) is just the Captain Marvel (or Shazam for you kids) of the Stone Age. The late 50s and 60s seems to have been the biggest era for this since we got Super-Chief, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Captain Comet during this era, as well as the cartoon characters Space Ghost and Mightor.

By the 70s and 80s, either writers were getting more sophisticated to their approach to other genres or they thought there audience wanted something different. Still, I would argue that some of the fantasy characters of the era (Warlord, Atlas, and Stalker, perhaps?) have traces of this, as do space operas like the Micronauts, and modern/military action like G.I. Joe. Certainly, Masters of the Universe is other-genre supers in spades.

This genre-bending seems to have been mostly ignored in superhero rpgs. There are a few Legion of Super-Hero-esque science fiction supplements, and there are short, sidebar discussions of other genres in places. Warriors & Warlocks for Mutants & Masterminds touches on this for fantasy. Given the number of superhero games and the popularity of other genres in rpgs like fantasy and science fiction or even Westerns, there have been very few.

The Off-Worlder Funnel

The person from another world arriving in fantasyland is a genre staple. Typically, these off-worlders, whether they be John Carter on Mars or the kids from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, have some sort of edge that gives them a fighting chance or better in their new environment. But what if that wasn't the case? What if they were as unprepared as the survivors in zombie apocalypse fiction?

The death rate would be pretty high, particularly if you drop them in a typical D&D world and allow for the almost absurd horrors of the dungeoncrawl. It would be an interesting way to do a DCC-esque funnel with starting characters other than the usual suspects.

Here's another image of regular folks dying tragicomic deaths from "Planet of the Damned" in Starlord #2 (1978).

Games I Thought About Running, But Then G+ Was Going Away

Okay, it's highly likely, indeed probable, that I wouldn't have run any of these games regardless, but I did think about it. And then I thought about the impending doom of Google Plus. They are presented roughly in chronological order of conception:

Wild Wild West: Old West spy-fi like the 60s TV show. Well, inspired by the TV show, maybe with a bit more of a SHIELD type organization and the sort of villains that occasionally showed up in Marvel Western comics. I thought about using the much-maligned TSR Indiana Jones game for it.

Something Superhero: This was a less formed idea, but I had had a couple of ideas, one of which was running it in the world of the Armchair Planet Who's Who.

Vancian Talislanta: The works of Jack Vance were a huge influence on Talislanta, and the native system has its charm, but I thought it might be fun to give the first edition of the Dying Earth rpg a whirl at the more heroic Turjan level. Tweaking Talislanta to be a land of verbose rogues is probably only a slight shift, but a flavorful one.

Solar Trek: What started out as a thought experiment of a hard science fiction leaning version of Star Trek set within our Solar System got me sort of interested in seeing how that might actually come out in play.

Comic Strip/Serial Star Wars: Coming out of Solar Trek discussions was an idea for a "back to the roots" Star Wars, shorn of the 70s, and exhibiting its full Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon whiz bang glory. I suppose it has a stronger version of the old Star Wars problem: If you play the main characters the story is sort of known, but if you play other people in the universe, how do you keep them from being overshadowed, and in this case, how do you keep it seeming Star Wars like rather than just some pulp space thing.

Solar Trek: An Alternate Star Trek Setting

Bold proposal: Take the "stars" out of Star Trek. Make it a hard(ish) sci-fi alternate history setting taking place within our solar system. Yes, this would lose some of the mission statement of the voice over intro, but it would actually put it in line with Roddenberry's pitch noting similarities to Wagon Train and Horatio Hornblower (spoiler: neither series featured journeys to other worlds.). In modern high concept terms we could think of it as The Expanse meets Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

So, there would have been genetic supermen in the 90s, leading to advances in spaceflight technology unencumbered by democratic concerns. The supermen dictators would have sent out space probes, maybe even began colonies. (One of these expeditions would start the terraforming of Mars. Their colony of genetically modified individuals would centuries later provide the famous half-Martian first officer, Spock.) As the post-Eugenics War chaos ushered in World War III, some would flee the Earth to set up settlements elsewhere.

In the 23rd Century, some of these farflung colonies and societies are only now being re-contacted. Some have grown strange in isolation. Other have grown into military powers in their own right, like the bellicose totalitarian state lurking around Jupiter's moons, the Klingons, or the mysterious Romulans of the cold depths of beyond Uranus.

The solar system could be updated to modern science, or it might conform to the state of knowledge in the late 60s when Star Trek debuted. I suppose one could push in back even to the 50s science of Asimov's Lucky Starr series, if you just needed Venus with an ocean. Science fiction's knack in the era for coming up with creative ways life could be almost everywhere might prove instructive.

Weird Revisited: The Pulp Core of Trek

I was once again talking about how I might run a slightly alternate ST:TOS game with fellow fan, Jason Sholtis, the other day, which reminded me of this post from 2012...

While I've enjoyed all the Trek series (well, maybe not Voyager) to one degree or another, my favorite has always been the original. It's very much of it's era which gives it a cool design sense and adapts a lot of Golden Age and pulp science fiction elements. The "core canon" for my game would be the original series.

(As an aside, I'd say that a lot of later accretions on the Trek universe have served to downplay the old school science fiction feel. Genetic supermen and a interplanetary sleeper ship coming from the 1990s does not suggest the 20th century history of space travel in Trek played out like it did in our history, but rather more like the imaginings of Werner von Braun and Willy Ley.)

I mean, what would Trek be without Rigel II cabaret dancers?

I wouldn't leave it there, though. The now-noncanonical animated series adds the Kzinti (among other stuff) to the mix. Got to have these guys:

James Blish's novelizations of the original episodes give them a subtle sci-fi lit spin: I think Trek is better with a mysterious Vegan (VAY-gan, alright?) Tyranny in it's past than without it. Always early fan documents add a lot of stuff. The Starfleet Officer's Manual and Star Trek Maps are definitely in--as are parts of the totally out there on its on but well illustrated Spaceflight Chronology.

More Monster Manual Taxonomy: The Demihumans!

This is a follow-up to this post. D&D suggests that tribe Hominini is much like Canini and has species, even genera, close enough genetically to reproduce. Here's what we've got:

In genus Homo:
Elves H. formosus
Drow H. formosus tenebrarum
Halflings H. pygmeus
Orcs H. ferox

In genus Genomus:
Dwarves G. barbatus
Gnomes G. artificis
Deep Gnomes G. profundi

It is likely that there is a genus Gigantanthropus which includes ogres (proposed G. atrox) and goliaths (proposed G. montanus) and perhaps other near giants. Research is ongoing.