So Far So Good

I just recently got a Kindle, and I'm eager to try out my first ebook. First, though I want to get through my stack of already purchased physical books. Which might take a little while.

I'm happy to report, though, that so far this year I've read several good books in the fantasy genre. Here they are, in the order I read them:

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington. This is the only singleton fantasy of my reads so far this year, which is a testament of the difficulty in finding such an elusive beast. Bullington's is a picaresque historical fantasy about two dimwitted, and thoroughly reprehensible graverobber brothers who manage to defeat a number of demons. There's a bit of horror here, a generous portion of humor (a lot of it dark), and quite a bit of violence.  There are a lot of great incidents, though my favorite would come down to the surreal horror (and humor) of the appearance of a naked, possessed man astride a demonic pig, and the ironic, knife-twist of the witch's grim fairy tale.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. The second in his Gentlemen Bastards series. I didn't want to like the first book in this series, party because I find skepticism about a lot of recent fantasy a good hedge against disappoint, and partly because the title bugged me with its alliterativeness (The Lies of Locke Lamora)--its just a thing I have--but against my will, I liked it quite a bit. This one again has confidence men in a fantasy stand-in for medieval Italy going after a big score, but it also has pirates. A lot of nice, light-but-flavorful wordbuilding, clever dialogue, and intricate capers.

The Blade Itself  by Joe Abercrombie. The first novel in the First Law Trilogy. It reminds me a little bit of the work of David Gemmell--and that's good. Abercrombie's got grittiness, political intrigue, and an eclectic group of flawed characters gathered by a wizard to save the world. And cannibals. Or more precisely, people who gain magical power by cannibalism. I'm looking forward to Book Two.

Warlord Wednesday: Home is a Four-Letter Word

Let's enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Home Is A Four-Letter Word"

Warlord (vol. 1) #6 (April-May 1977)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis: In a campsite at Machu Picchu, a figure emerges from the darkness. Travis Morgan, stunned and bleeding, staggers into a tent, catching a beautiful, red-headed woman half-undressed. She's only surprised for a moment before snatching up a rifle. Morgan identifies himself as "a traveler" before passing out.

When he awakens, he finds himself surrounded by a group of people who already know his name (thanks to his dog-tags), and identify themselves as archaeologists investigating the Inca ruins under the auspices of the UN. The leader is Professor Lakely. The woman whose tent he crashed is Mariah Romanova from the University of Moscow. Morgan tells the archaeologists his strange story, and in turn, they reveal to him a startling fact. The year is 1977--he's been in Skartaris eight years!

The archaeologists are understandably somewhat incredulous of Morgan's story, but admit it might explain some of their recent findings. They want to show him a structure they've found that predates the Inca by 10,000 years. Morgan to apologize to Mariah for the previous night, but they wind up getting into a political argument--the capitalist warrior versus the communist scientist.

Arriving at the newly discovered chamber, Lakely explains that he believes the Inca to be descendants of the Atlanteans. Morgan proves his theory by translating some of the hieroglyphics around a giant bas-relief of a feline humanoid. The writing reveals the chamber to be the tomb of a demon, Tikal, blinded and imprisoned for sacrilege against the sun god. It also warns of curse on those who open the tomb, but the archaeologists don't heed it. The crypt is broken open, revealing a statue of the cat demon.

At that moment, a helicopter arrives above. The archaeologists explain that they radioed the Air Force last night when they found Morgan's dog-tags. Morgan's concerned, and takes a look at the helicopter--which isn't USAF, but instead belongs to "the Company." Mariah doesn't understand Morgan's worry, so Morgan explains that his government won't believe his story about Skartaris and will assume his 8 year absence means he's gone over to the Soviets. Further conversation is cut short by the arrival of an agent with a automatic rifle.

Lakely tries to intercede, and gets a back-hand for his trouble. That triggers a rage in Morgan who throttles the first agent, and lays into his companions. During the melee, no one notices the eyes of the cat-demon statue come to life as they're struck by the rays of the sinking sun. They do take notice when it springs into an attack against the Company men. Bullets prove useless, and after dispatching the agents it turns to the archaeologists--but is stopped when Morgan deprives its eyes of sunlight. Again becoming lifeless, it topples to the ground and shatters.

With the government after him, Morgan has even more reason to return to Skartaris. He suggests to Mariah that her nationality is going to lead to more trouble as well, if she stays. He suggests she return with him--offering an archaeologist's dream. Mariah accepts, and the two are soon headed back to the inner earth via the Atlantean sub-shuttle. Meanwhile, the leader of the agents awakens and demands to know where Morgan is, but the Professor's enigmatic answer doesn't satisfy.

In Skartaris, Morgan and Mariah exit the shuttle. Tara is no where to be found. Morgan doesn't understand where she would have gone; he's only been gone a day. He's even more confused when he sees his helmet where he left it--but covered in cobwebs.

Things to Notice:

• This issue takes place on April 15-16, 1977--around its publication date. Morgan has been in Skartaris 8 years.
• Morgan dates himself--he was born in 1926.
• Given everyone's state of dress (or undress) it must be an unseasonable warm April night at 7970 ft.
• So much for covert. The CIA helicopter has a prominently displayed "Air America" logo.
• The issue contains two Peter Pan references--Morgan calls Skartaris "Never Never Land," and Lakely quotes from the Disney animated film.

Where It Comes From:
In the introduction to Warlord: The Savage Empire Grell relates Mariah first name came from the song "They Call the Wind Maria" from the 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon, and the 1969 film adaptation with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Her surname is the feminine form of the of the name of the last imperial dynasty of Russia which ruled from 1613 until the revolution in 1917.

We get two Atlantean supernatural beings named this issue. The name Tikal comes from the name given to the site of an ancient Mayan city in Guatemala. The name of the Atlantean sun god, Ra, is the same as the ancient Egyptian sun god.

Air America, owners of the helicopter in the issue, was a cargo and passenger airline secretly owned and operated by the CIA.  It was involved in providing support for covert operations during the Vietnam War.

Lakely's quote--"second star to the right, straight on till morning"--comes from Peter Pan. This is Peter's explanation to Wendy and her brothers about how they'll to get to Neverland. The word "star" doesn't appear in the line in J.M. Barrie's original novel or stage play, however.  It was added in the 1953 Disney film version.

The underground sub-shuttle seen again this issue bears a resemble to the like-named subshuttle in the Gene Roddenberry created TV movie, Genesis II (1973):

Magical Mystery Tour: The Gnomes

As mentioned before, there are two types of beings called "gnomes" in the world of Arn. One is a scholarly group akin to halflings, inhabiting and maintaining the Library of Tharkad-Keln. The other are ultraterrestrials--extraplanar beings--who have been characterized as an annoying group of pilgrims, or even less charitably, as an infection of the Prime Material Plane. It is this second type of gnome that will concern us here.

Gnomes usually appear as diminutive men with nut-brown skin and large, amber eyes. There are reports of green-skinned gnomes, and youthful females, but these are more rare. No one knows if these different forms reflect real differences within the gnomish race, or are only affectations.

Their demeanor is often perplexing, as well. They often project a knowing amusement in their interactions with other intelligent species, but can at times view even the simplest and commonplace things with child-like wonder. Unless directly threatened, they often seem blissfully unaware of dangerous situations.

No one knows on what plane the gnomes arose. Some hold that it was the elemental plane of earth itself, given their connection with that element. Others hold that they hail from an alternate material plane with a higher concentration of elemental earth. Wherever they came from, they're now a race of travellers--though the purpose of their travels is mysterious.

Gnomes go anywhere there is elemental earth. They somehow dwell within--and move and communicate through--something they refer to as "tesseract networks" within the elemental particles of earth (which as all natural philosophers know are cubic in nature). Gnomes occasionally invite other sapients into their "networks," but those who return are unable to give coherent descriptions of what they have seen.

Certain species of mushrooms represent "nodes" in the gnomish network, and are places from which gnomes emerge into our plane. Consumption of these mushrooms expands the consciousness in unpredictable ways--sometimes allowing experiences of the areas around other nodes in the gnomish network, perhaps in other time periods, or allowing direct mental communication with the intellects of the gnomes themselves. The minds of other species don't always recover from these experiences.

Despite their alien nature, gnomes are generally friendly toward other intelligent races. They will often trade gems or precious stones, though the items they desire in exchange can't be predicted. They are often skilled mages and have been known to join adventuring parties for a time, when they can find one willing to put up with their eccentricities. They go and come as they please with no explanation.  Mostly, they observe with interest, as if the world was a play put on for their amusement.

Honor Among Thieves: How's Your Crime Organized?

Fantasy gaming thieves guilds often tend toward a sameness--basically they're a sort of unusual trade union, as initially envision by Fritz Leiber in his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. This was a fresh take on things when Leiber did it, but its time for a little more variety. After all, there are plenty of real world current and historical criminal organizations for inspiration, as well as some more recent fictional ones. Characteristics of these groups can certainly be used to add color to your usual fantasy world's thieves.

In looking at real world organizations, we find they often emerge among minority groups. Gangs formed in immigrant communities in the U.S., often for some degree of protection, and these developed into Irish and Jewish mobs, and the Chinese Tongs. The mafia didn't start in in an immigrant community, but the insular nature of these communities in the U.S. and elsewhere often allowed it to grow even more powerful. Even when the organizations' members are part of the larger culture, they many come from groups who are downtrodden for reasons other than just being poor. The yakuza, for instance, are thought to have formed from a combination of the trade organizations for gamblers and peddlers. Their ranks tended to be drawn from outcast enclaves where people who performed activities that were seen as "unclean" lived.

How often do fantasy thieves organizations have a distinct ethnic character--or at least, a history of a distinct ethnic character? Or how about if the make up of a thieves group reflected something interesting about the social stratification of the society in question?

Another common trait of real world criminal societies is that they function very much like other sorts of secret societies. They have esoteric rituals and customs beyond just an argot like thieves' cant. The yakuza traditionally had (or have) elaborate tattoos. The mafia, at least in fiction, has initiation rituals and distinctions between associate members and "made" men. Even the traditional trade union approach might suggest some sort of pseudo-masonic rites for a any self-respecting thieves guild.

Sometimes, criminal organizations have political agendas. Some, like the Chinese Triads, are thought to have formed in response to invasion. Certainly there are criminal enterprises in existence today with political axes to grind--though admittedly, these often cross the blurry line into terrorist organizations. Still, a thieves guild with that sort of ambiguous nature would be interesting, too.

Lastly, real world organized crime groups aren't monolithic, and there's no reason fantasy ones should be. Families or clans within a larger organization, make for intrigue and gang wars, and a lot of other fodder for adventuring. Are the families tighly controlled by a central authority, or is the peace more tenuous?  Perhaps there are actually competing organizations in an area with different rituals, organizations, and backgrounds?

Those are my suggestions. If I had to pick a few resources to get the creative juices flowing, their certainly a lot a of "mob movies" worth seeing that give examples of how organized crime structures work. Most of Scorsese's mob films would do the trick, as would the Sopranos. To move away from the modern, the manga Lone Wolf & Club and the movies based on it give interesting vignettes on a lot of aspects of feudal Japanese culture, including the yakuza. In literature, Scott Lynch's recent book The Lies of Locke Lamora gives a lot of detail about the structure and ritual of the "Right People" of Camorr, an organization inspired no doubt by various Italian criminal societies, in the same way that Camorr is inspired by Venice.

Stories in the Naked City

Here's an eclectic sampling of people from the streets of Terminus, most distant outpost of the fallen Thystaran empire, in the south of the continent of Arn:

Kro One-Eye: Alcoholic, and possibly consumptive, swordmaster. He either lost his left eye to a rebel in the Dharwood, or to an angry whore, depending on how deep into the cups he his when he gets 'round to the tale. He's a fixture in dives along Wine and Tavern Streets, regaling fellow patrons with daring (and dubious) tales of his youthful adventures, and the occasional demonstration of his skills. For a cup of watered wine he'll give a few pointers on use of the blade. For a bottle of good Kael whiskey, he'll take on a student. For a small cask of vintage Trosian Red, he'll fight at your side--as long as it doesn't take him far from the River District. (Looks like: Sam Elliott (with an eyepatch) circa Roadhouse; and Sounds like: Gary Oldman).

Nari: Dancing-girl and part-time professional mourner, residing in Copper Court. When not performing, her demeanor suggests she's seen it all and found most of it excruciatingly dull. When dancing, she can be found at the Quivering Navel, and in her off-hours she's often found smoking djesha-leaf resin from a waterpipe at Gelv's House of Innumerable Pleasures (where the pleasures are far from innumerable--perhaps only in the single digits). She can be relied upon to have heard a good deal of gossip and rumor, though she's also guaranteed not to have found much of it particularly interesting. (Looks like: Caroline Munro circa 1973).

The Gate Street Players: Ten thespians--six male, four female--operating out of a small theater on Gate Street. The Players tend to perform daring reinterpretations of the classics. Their current production is a take on Teleganexes' The Fall of Iztlann, where the traditionally male roles of protagonist Dyzanarios and his sword-brother Tekromo are played by women, and tragic ending is replaced by the two heroes--heroines--entering into a ménage à trois with Yla, the villainous witch-seductress. Their next production is to be the infamous Llysan work The King in Tatters, written by a madman, and performed just once--for the court of the Llysan Emperor the faithful night the execution of a peasant girl for diablerie failed, and the Emperor and his court died weird, and horrible deaths. Superstitious rumor holds the play is cursed and its performance opens a gate to dread planes. The Gate Street Players are undeterred.

Hrasthus Nort: Vagabond, beggar, and ambassador for the Vagrant City of Lardafa, the shanty-Atlantis of the Great Marsh. Nort, dressed like a ragged courtier come forth from the tomb after a half-century, is most often found around the the government offices, but sometimes takes a drink along Tavern Street. He carries a ragged sheet of sheepskin with the crudely drawn seal of Lardafa as a sign of his office, and is always accompanied by his similarly dressed attache--a mocking-monkey called Jip. Nort panhandles for coin, proselytizes to the poor about the wonders of Lardafa, and waits for his never-to-come audience with the Governor-Prefect. Sometimes, after a few drinks, he hints of ancient, eldritch things discovered in the depths of the swamp, dark bargains struck by Lardafa's Burgomaster Jero Flistapp, and a growing, unspoken fear among the city's populace. (Looks like: "Gabby" Hayes; and Sounds like: Brian Cox as Jack Langrishe in Deadwood).

Yreel Dahyût: One of the few women in the city watch, and the only officer currently. Dahyût is tall, and beautiful, if somewhat severe, in her always polished armor and spotless uniform. The deference granted her, and her bearing and diction, suggest an origin among the minor noble families of the Tabeidonian or Vararian Towers. Cursory inquiries would reveal this to be false. Dahyût has no family--indeed she has no history at all. She simply appeared one day as a high-placed and respected member of the watch. The purpose of this subterfuge, and the means by which is was accomplished remain unanswered questions. (Looks like: Kristanna Loken).

Swords & Stop-Motion

The tv promos for the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake has got me thinking about the fantasy films of animator Ray Harryhausen and the impact they had on both my love of fantasy and fantasy gaming. The only one of these films I saw in the theater at its original release was Clash of the Titans from 1981, but the others playing as a network TV movies of the week, or on a Saturday afternoon in the early days of cable, were treasured treats. Before the today's digital effects, the stuttering vibrancy of Harryhausen's creations gave the fantastic a weight and reality that cel animation and men in unconvincing suits couldn't hope to match.

Ray Harryhausen got his start on George Pal's Puppetoon shorts. Pal was later to be the animator responsible for effects in 1953's War of the Worlds and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Then Harryhausen worked as an assistant to Willis O'Brien, the animator for the original King Kong, on 1949's Mighty Joe Young. In 1953, Harry Harryhausen was the primary animator on his first feature, The Beast from 50,000 Fathoms.

It was in 1958 that Harryhausen made his first fantasy adventure film, and his first foray into the previously unchronicled adventures of Sinbad of 1001 Arabian Nights fame. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad has never held the attraction for me that the seventies Sinbad films do, but it does have a dragon, a two-headed roc, and the iconic goat-legged cyclops.

7th Voyage featured a fight with skeletons, a set-piece Harryhausen would reuse in 1963's Jason and the Argonauts. This one's got an appearance by the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, as Phineas, but of course the big stars are the creatures--which include the hydra, the bronze giant Talos, and the harpies. The iconic moment in this film is skeletons sprouting from sown dragon's teeth to fight Jason while Jack Gwillim, as Aeëtes, gleefully overacts.

1973 and 1977 brought us The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, respectively. The Golden Voyage had Danger: Diabolik's John Law in the lead, with the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, as an evil wizard, Koura. Depending on how old you were when you saw this, the stop-motion may have taken something of a backseat to the obvious charms of Caroline Munro as the slave-girl, Margiana. Still, it had a griffin, a centaur, and an animated statue of Kali. Eye of the Tiger (no relation to the Survivor song...probably) had Patrick (son of John) Wayne donning the blousy shirt as Sinbad, and doubled the feminine pulchritude with Jane Seymour as Princess Farah, and Taryn Power as Dione. Sinbad and crew go to Hyperborea with an alchemist (Patrick Troughton again) to find a cure for Farah's brother who's been changed into a baboon, by the witch Zenobia who's got a mechanical minotaur called the Minaton. We also get a giant walrus, insectoid ghouls, and a sabretooth tiger.

Harryhausen's heyday came to an end with 1981's Clash of the Titans. Like Jason, this was another foray into Greek mythology, with a few extra-mythic flourishes. Hey, records from that period are spotty at best. Maybe there was a clockwork owl, and a mishapen Calibos? I could do without the neon nimbus around the head of Zeus, though. The coolest thing in Clash has to be the kraken, followed closely by the phrase that heralds his appearances: "Release the kraken!"

By the eighties, stop-motion was beginning to seem quiant, and digital effects were on the horizon. Now we live in an era where whole worlds can be can be created with computer animation, not just individual creatures. I'm by no means a Luddite. I really enjoy digital animation and the vistas it's opened, but I do feel its ease and ubiquity has removed some of the specialness of Harryhausen's and other's stop-motion creations.

When I see a dragon these days, its going to be digital, the only question is its quality. But in the previous era, a dragon could be a bored looking iguana with a fin stuck on its back, or a product of craft and imagination--that was made all the more fantastic because it was unexpected.

Urban Decadence Made Easy

There are a lot great urban settings in fiction--Lankhmar, Shadizar the Wicked, Valkis, the Sprawl, and New Crobuzon, to name a few. As evocative as they are, these dens of iniquity pale against other colorful cities, made all the more interesting because they were real. Lankhmar never had prostitutes that advertised the particular fetish services they offered by various color combinations of boots and lacing, nor does even New Crobuzon sport boy-gangs with costumes like the Indian Chief in the Village People. Weimar Berlin had both. Want a place where adventurers roam streets run by crime-lords with sobriquets like Big Ears Du and Pock-Marked Huang? Look no further than 1930s Shanghai.

These two cities and more are found in two nonfiction resources, which will no doubt inspire in number of details for gaming cities and adventures to have, therein:

1920s Berlin is detailed in all its decadent, cabaret glory in Voluptuous Panic by Mel Gordon. Essentially an R-rated coffee table book (for people with R-rated coffee tables, I suppose) Gordon provides a lot of interesting text, too. He gives, for example, brief dictionaries of underworld slang, and a catalog of types of prostitutes (divided by indoor and outdoor) that's halfway to random encounter table. The focus is mostly on sex, but the expanded edition also has a chapter on the occult underground of the era.

Legendary Sin Cities is the DVD collection of a three-part, 2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary. It lacks the detail of Voluptuous Panic, but makes up for it in scope. The three segments cover Paris, Berlin, and Shanghai, roughly over the 1920s and '30s. All three cities were, of course, drenched in vice, but each has its own character--Paris is jazz and art, Berlin is the last party in the looming shadow of Nazism, and Shanghai is a a crime-ridden cultural crossroads. At 210 minutes, the whole series is pretty short but enough to get a feel for the cities it profiles.

There are any number of ways either of these resources could be used to inform gaming. The context and character of the cities could be ported over to a fantasy world with only a little translation, or details could be yanked to add color to an already existing locale, or as a springboard for an adventure.

Regardless of their considerable inspirational value, they're fascinating windows into some interesting places and times.