Dark Sun: The Gray

Cosmology is really on comes up and references to certain monsters or magic in the original Dark Sun campaign setting, but in the second edition supplement Defilers and Preservers the "planes" called the Gray and the Black are established. The Black mainly serves a backstory purpose or to be a place for monsters to be from. It's similar to the Plane of Shadow/Shadowfell, a concept I've felt to be of limited utility in most settings, Dark Sun included. 

The Gray is a different story. It at once solves one potential problem with the Great Wheel: there are too many afterlifes. It also provides a thematically appropriate underworld for the this particular setting.

The Gray is described as a "dreary, endless space" or "ashen haze." In conception it's not unlike Hades or Sheol. Like the River Lethe of Greek myth, the Gray steals memory and identity, but in this case the environment leeches it from them. Eventually their spiritual being becomes one with the gloom.

The only thing I don't like about the Gray as described is that I don't think it should be featureless. More interesting to me, would be if it mirrored in most respects the desert landscape of Athas, except perhaps more desolate. It would be doubted with ruins of dead cities and the tombs and monuments to long dead potentates who thought they could carry their riches into the afterlife--and perhaps, in a way they did, for all the good it did them.

Of course it should be possible (though not easy) to visit the Gray, like visiting the Underworld in Greek mythology. The souls of the dead are probably not dangerous for the most part to visitors, but the the ghosts that could pass between the Gray and the mortal realm might well be.

Dark Sun: The Desiccated Sea

Here I'm going to break a bit more with Dark Sun as published than I have in my previous posts. I'm afraid I don't really like the Sea of Silt. I know realism doesn't really have much of a place in a fantasy setting about sorcerer-kings and dragons, but it isn't very realistic. Also, I think it robs the setting of a bit of it's desert feel because it gives kind of an "out." Travel across the Sea of Silt is more difficult that ocean-going travel, true, but it provides some of the same type of adventuring opportunities. This could be a feature, but I see it as a bit of a bug.

Instead of the Sea of Silt, I'd just like to have a dried up sea. A harsh, saltpan basin dotted with a few shallow, hypersaline lakes where only bacteria can dwell, and tall mesas that were once islands. In other words, something like the Mediterranean would have been during the Messinian salinity crisis of the Miocene.

It would be an incredibly harsh environment, potentially. If the Sea of Silt had anything like the depth of the Mediterranean basin the pressure at the bottom would be something like 1.5 times that of "sea level" above it, and the temperatures might soar to 170 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer according to some models.

Given that salt is a quasi-element in D&D lore you would loose the Silt Sea creatures, but you could replace them with bizarre creatures of the the Quasi-elemental Plane of Salt if you wanted. You can still have giants on the islands if you wish (in an inversion of the tendency to insular dwarfism), but you can also have isolated city states in Planetary Romance fashion.

If one wanted commerce across the expanse, that would still be possible, but likely it would be via flight. If not that, land-sailing across the saltpan. It wouldn't be the most pleasant way to travel, but it could be done (if one avoided the summer months assuming temperatures as mentioned above, but we don't have to assume temperatures so high, either).

Once a thriving port, now a dead city on the cliffs

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1980 (wk 2, pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around June 26, 1980.

Legion of Super-Heroes #267: Conway and Janes continue the evil genie storyline. We find out that the genies left Earth to conquer the space long ago but were defeated by the Guardians and placed in bottles. Bouncing Boy realizes he couldn't make the genie return to the bottle before with his wish because the bottle had been destroyed, and genie's are super-literal. Armed with a new bottle, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (splitting gives her more wishes) trap the jinn between two wishes he rather not fulfill and trap him in the bottle. The backup story is written by Kupperberg and has rare Legion art by Steve Ditko.

Mystery in Space #111: This revival of a series last published in 1966 is presumably a replacement for Timewarp. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these stories were slated to appear there and just got moved over. The contents are a mixed bag. Brown and Spiegle lead off with an EC-ish tale about murderous aliens who initially appear friendly. The ending gag has the last survivor of the diplomatic envoy trying to warn earth but because he sends the message "collect" it gets rejected. Also good (and EC reminiscent) is a wordless story by Brown and Aparo about a disguised diplomat hiding out among the conquering alien forces. Less good are the stories that remind me of subpar Warren stuff: a story about a time traveling robot and primitive humans, and a gag story about a time traveler getting an overdue tax bill. Then there's a goofy yarn by Barr and Ditko about a ridiculed scholar who steals a time machine to prove "the truth behind fairy tales" only to wind up accidentally manufacturing that truth with his futuristic technology.

New Adventures of Superboy #9: Last issue's mysteries come down to Phantom Zone criminals who are trying to ruin Superboy's life by driving him away from everyone he loves. Ma and Pa Kent manage to break free from the amnesia and hatch a desperate plan to let Superboy know they remember him. It's a weird comic by modern standards because there is never a confrontation between hero and villains.

Sgt. Rock #344: In the main story, Rock and a group of nameless joes are captured and stripped by a group of Germans looking to use their uniforms to infiltrate Easy Company. Only Rock survives and has to make it through the snowy wilderness in his underwear to warn his men. Kanigher and Redondo get creative with these plots, I'll give them that. The four short, uncredited, backup stories in this issue are all bad. 

Super Friends #36: Either Bridwell or Fradon must have been a fan of the Coneheads sketch on Saturday Night Live, because Warhead, the villain of this issue, looks just like one of them. Plastic Man and Woozy also guest star. Most of the issue is Plastic Man causing trouble for the Super Friends. The Wonder Twins backup I actually liked better than the main story. It has art by Tanghal and Colletta and features an astrally projecting. evolved saurian alien inadvertently causing panic by animating dinosaur fossils in a museum.

Unexpected #202: The cover is great, and the first story here has got to be the most disturbing tale I've read in one of these DC horror titles so far. Uslan and Henson present a murderous Easter Bunny out turn the tables on kids by dipping them in chocolate and biting their heads off! The other stories are a giant step down. Palmer and Landgraf/Orlando have a guy selling his soul...to an angel. The angel just thinks its funny to have the guy amuse he's obligated himself to the other side all his life and only reveals the true when the guy is on his death bed. Murders in a national park turn out to be committed by, well, all the animals working together in a silly Day of the Animals riff by Seeger and Geroche. 

Unknown Soldier #243: Haney and Ayers pit the "Immortal G.I." against the Vole, a Nazi spymaster who looks a lot like Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The story involves a secret bomb test in Scotland, a fake Loch Ness monster, a capture to deliver false information to the Germans, and a whole lot of changes of location that don't necessarily add up to much. The "Dateline: Frontline" backup written by Burkett with Tothian art by Ric Estrada is okay. The other backup has a Navy frogman battling a giant octopus. The art looks like it could be from a much older comic, but it's by Randall and Janes, so it just looks that way.

Untold Legend of Batman #3: I can't decide if Wein and Aparo's ending here is daring or hokey. But really, why choose? It's both! The mysterious foe out to get Batman is none other than....Bruce Wayne! It seems a blow to the head causes Batman to develop temporary multiple personalities. Or something. Anyway, no visits to a neurologist or long-term therapy necessary as a fight with Robin dressed up in Thomas Wayne's Bat Man costume party outfit cures him. Despite the hard to swallow ending, it's still a good series for a definitive, Bronze Age origin of Batman and his family. There's a map of the Batcave and schematics of bat equipment in the back.

Warlord #37: Read more about it here. It also has an OMAC backup where Starlin continues (and does a bit of retconning) of Kirby's series.

Weird Revisited: Chances Are Walter Velez Has Illustrated Your Game

The original version of this post appeared in 2016, but it's still true today...

Sure, it's the Frazettas and Fabians, or Blanches and Buscemas--or even Elmores and Caldwells whose art fueled most of our gaming imaginations, but at least for my game, the works of George Velez hit a bit closer to what the reality is at the table.

Exhibit A. See that? That's a pudgy wizard running from a dragon that looks like it doesn't have a whole lot of hit points.

This is all the PCs trying to parley with the leader of the NPCs at once.

The fight didn't go exactly how you planned? Quelle surprise.

Hassled by annoying little people? It's been known to happen.

Dark Sun: The Lion of Urik

Supreme over other kings, lordly in appearance,
he is the hero, born of Uruk...

- The Epic of Gilgamesh

I am Hamanu, King of the World, King of the

Mountains and the Plains, King of Urik, for whom

the roaring winds and the all-mighty sun have decreed

a destiny of heroism...

- Dark Sun Campaign Setting (1991)

Urik's name was no doubt inspired by the ancient Mesopotamian city-state of Uruk. It's Sorcerer-King Hamanu likely got his name and love of law and order from the Babylonian king Hammurabi, but I think his character is a bit more analogous to the Sumerian, mythic hero Gilgamesh. 

Hamanu is the most heroic of the Sorcerer-Kings. Not in the modern sense of being a noble or a fighter for good, though. He is neither. Rather, he is a hero more ancient sense: a doer of mighty deeds. While the Dark Sun campaign setting perhaps intended Hamanu more as a brilliant tactician and military strategist rather than a man of arms, I feel likely he's much more interesting (and differentiated from the other Sorcerer-Kings) if he is a mighty-thewed warrior, imbued with magical might. I envision him something like the titular Exalted of the any edition of the Exalted rpg, or perhaps Solomon David from Kill Six Billion Demons:

A side issue (but an important worldbuilding one, I think): Hamanu's banner. We are told in multiple places that Hamanu's (i.e. Urik's) troops care a "lion banner." The novel The Crimson Legion once describes it as a "lion that walks like a man," but nowhere where else gets this specific. The novel later has Hamanu assuming or projecting a monstrous, leonine form. 

This would suggest Athas, a world with beetle-like draft animals and reptile-bird mounts, has mundane lions. To be fair, Athas has mundane humans, so it's not impossible. It's also possible lions died out back before the cataclysmic times that changed the world from some more typical fantasy setting to its current state and exist now only as semi-mythical heraldic beasts. That's not a bad explanation, but I prefer my Athas to never have been a standard fantasy world, favoring a more Planetary Romance environment. I assume "lion" is a translation--like "Barsoomian lion" is sometimes used for "banth" in Burroughs's Mars series. In fact, I say just choose your favorite depiction of a banth and that's your Athasian lion.

Dark Sun: Tumult in Tyr

In the Dark Sun campaign setting, the city-state of Tyr is presented as on the brink of some drastic change. The Sorcerer-King Kalak has confiscated the slaves of the nobles to build his ziggurat, is taxing the people unmercifully to pay for it, and is neglecting his trade obligations to neighboring states. Kalak's reasons for doing this and the results of his actions for for his city play out in the novel The Verdant Passage and in the module Freedom.

In canon, revolution comes to Tyr as Kalak tries to bootstrap himself into dragonhood, and he's thwarted and killed. These events are reflected in the descriptions of Tyr in the revised campaign setting and the 4e Dark Sun setting book.

There are a few other interesting tidbits regarding Tyr. It has the only iron mines in the region. It has a Senate made up of the city nobles that are marginalized and at odds with Kalak's templar bureaucracy. Kalak keeps the still-living, severed heads of former allies Sacha and Wyan around to advise him, and they live on blood. (There is some discrepancy about who Sacha and Wyan are/were. Verdant Passage has Kalak claim they were chieftains that helped him conquered Tyr, and Sacha is presented as the progenitor of the Mericles noble house. In both later novels and rpg material, they are fellow "champions of Rajaat" killed by the dragon.)

Metaplot aside, resolving "Tyr as powder keg" too quickly in the line feels like a misstep to me. I would drag this out, let PCs get involved with the interplay of the factions. Even if they have no desire to become revolutionaries, there's a lot of interesting gameplay that could be wrung from this, whether the players approach it like Yojimbo or just work to avoid it.

I would ditch the name "the Senate" (too much Roman association) but keep the oligarchy as a faction, maybe remaining it the Council or Supreme Council (which the chief governmental body of Carthage was called) or even "The Mighty Ones" (the literal translation of the council advising Phoenician kings).

I love Kalak's plan to jumpstart himself into a dragon, so that has to stay. I also think the severed head advisors are a great touch. I would borrow a bit from Clark Ashton Smith's "The Empire of the Necromancers" and say that Sacha and Wyan (I would change those names, too) were sorcerers and colleagues of Kalak who all came together to the village of Tyr, which at that time was in a small, marshy, wetland amid the ruins of a more ancient city. The three built the city, perhaps with undead labor, but eventually Kalak betrayed and killed the other two.

Star Trek Endeavour: To Free the Ranger

A continuing campaign in Star Trek Adventures...

Episode 5: "Agents of Influence [part 3]"

Player Characters: 

The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 

Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief

Eric As Lt.Cmdr. Tavek, Science Officer

Jason as Lt. Francisco Otomo, Chief Security Officer

and guest starring the crew of  USS Ranger: 

Aaron as Lt.(jg.) Cayson Randolph, Operations

Andrea as Capt. Ada Greer

Dennis, as Lt. Osvaldo Marquez, Medical Officer

Synposis: Continued from last session! The Klingon agent in the Ranger crew has revealed himself by killing Chief Engineer Galv and Ona Greer is next. Thinking fast, Greer charges the spy and knocks the phaser pistol out of his hand. After a short battle, she stuns him with her own phaser.

The combined crews continue their preparations for an impending Orion assault. Tavek gets the idea to modify a sensor buoy to create a sensor shadow that would give the impression of a larger vessel to lure the Orion's away. The engineers manage to get the damaged impulse engine working enough to power the phasers.

Locke and Hale take the shuttle with Starfleet spies and the data for Nogura to make a run for Endeavor. Hale again manages some hotshot piloting to get them away from the Orions. Locke sends a coded message to Endeavour and it seems to be received. The cavalry is hopefully coming.

As the Orions arrive, Captain Greer chooses to share that information with the Orions, warning them that they may soon face two fully armed starships. The Orions decide discretion is the better part of valor and beat a retreat.

Endeavour arrives to rescue the remaining Ranger crew.

Commentary: As mentioned before the kernel of this adventure is the novel Agents of Influence by Dayton Ward. Here the player's deviated to the greatest degree from what the characters in the novel did, which is for the best as it brought it to a close this session. This was a crossover of the two Star Trek Adventure groups, and I think it worked reasonably well, but there are probably limits to how long I was going to be able to keep that many players showing up.