Exterminators

Exterminator in heavy enviromental gear

The exterminators of the City are a special breed, as hard-bitten and courageous as any adventurer. The ones deserving of that appellation are not the day-to-day workers in the private pest control business (though some of them are tough cases, too), but rather the highly trained and perhaps a little crazy men (and few women) working for the Municipal Department of Animal and Pest Control.

Escaped familiars or the occasional wandering monster from out of the wilderness are the sort of calls that will bring out the men of the MDAPC, but their work a day grind is the monitoring and clearing of the various subterranean areas beneath the City. The City was built on swampy land crisscrossed by creeks and streams. These swamps were drained, and many of the waters directed underground through tunnels. Add to these waterways the sewers, steam tunnels, and subway stations that support the modern city--to say nothing of the occasional underground structure built by the Ancients. All these subterranean environments support life.

In the upper levels, one mostly encounter creatures which may have wandered down from the surface, or vermin swarms, or larger than normal specimens of such. Dangerous fungi are not unknown. Here the exterminators must also be careful to respect the ghouls and give them wide berth.

In the mid-levels, or in wetter places, various slimes, oozes, and molds are found. These strange life forms are born of the effluvia of industrial alchemy, the sludge of botched thaumaturgy, or the strangest flourishes of Nature--or possibly all three. Control of these lifeforms requires special preparation and often protective garb.

The lowest levels present the strangest and most eclectic challenges. There are prehistoric holdouts evolved (or devolved) to hideous, blind forms in eternal darkness. There are chimerical creatures produced by the decadent sorceries of the Ancients. There are even extraplanar visitors trapped their for millennia, summoned by prehuman wizards, and held behind eroding wards.

In other words, the brave officers of the MDAPC face most of the challenges faced by your average professional adventurer. The only real difference is, they have a city pension to look forward to instead of a treasure haul. Is it any wonder many give up civil service in favor of putting their skills to use elsewhere?

Warlord Wednesday: Atlantis Dying

Let's re-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...

"Atlantis Dying"

Warlord (vol. 1) #27 (November 1979)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Along the Terminator, Deimos returns to his fortress astride a winged reptile. His servitors are surprised to see him alive, and also surprised by his new, more bestial appearance. Deimos explains he is beyond death, but his dark magics fused parts of Tara’s dog's body with his as he regenerated. Deimos pushes his lackey aside with his impatience to consult his crystal ball. In it, he’s sees an image of a primitive man encountering a sabretooth tiger--a primitive that is somehow Travis Morgan.

Morgan realizes he is reliving one of his previous incarnations. He wonders how many lifetimes he lived between this nameless primitive and Travis Morgan. He has little time to consider this question, as the tiger pounces--and kills him.

Morgan next finds himself in the form of Gaius Thelatos, scientist of Atlantis, being honored for his greatest achievement. Thelatos conceived of a way to pump seawater into volcanoes and so generate steam for heat, holding back the Ice Age that grips the world outside. Gaius Thelatos has saved all of Atlantean civilization--at least for a time.

Morgan lives in glorious Atlantis as Thelatos for years, until one faithful day when an earthquake strikes. Thelatos investigates and finds that his invention has ultimately led to cooling and contraction of the lava fields, leaving Atlantis resting atop a thin bubble of rock. And now, the bubble has begun to crack.

The Atlantean council refuses to heed Thelatos’ warning, but King Thorkall does, and sends away a colonial expedition so that their civilization might survive. Thelatos is offered a place on the ships, but declines, feeling himself responsible for what is to happen. And so, in that year Atlantis sinks beneath the waves and another of Morgan’s past lives ends.

Morgan experiences many more incarnations. He is a Nubian gladiator who dies in the arena during the reign of Augustus Caesar. He’s Lancelot du Lac, and the musketeer, D’Artagnan. He’s Jim Bowie, and Crazy Horse. He’s a doughboy who falls at Argonne. Despite the diversity of his lives, he’s almost always a warror.

Finally, he’s again Colonel Travis Morgan being asked to volunteer for a dangerous mission over the Soviet Union. At that moment of decison, he thinks again on everything that flollows after that point: his crash in Skartaris, Tara, Machiste, and the people who looked to him as a leader. He realizes he can’t turn his back on them...

And steps through a portal, back into present, and almost into the path of Chakal’s ray beam. He shoots Chakal’s gun, which only bends its barrel--but its enough. The next time Chakal tries to fire the damaged weapon, it begins to overheat. Before Chakal can do anything, it explodes.

Ashir asks Morgan where he went, but Morgan can’t recall. Wherever it was, its obvious nothing changed in the present, so Ashir admonition about trying to change the past must have been right. Morgan decides his only recourse is to make the best of the future.

Things to Notice:

• Poor Shadow gets his bits ignobly mixed with Deimos.
• We see the "secret origin" of the Atlantean fleet that founded Skartarian civilization, last seen in issue 5.
• Travis Morgan exists in an alternate universe where fictional characters are real as he was both Lancelot and D'Artagnan in previous lives.

Where It Comes From:
Grell's past life exploring story recalls The Star Rover by Jack London, though the emphasis on "warrior" lives perhaps owes more to Robert E. Howard's reincarnation stories staring James Allison.

Atlantis here isn't the undersea kingdom of most comics, but instead an advanced, pseudo-Greco-Roman land of (some) pulp/adventure fiction.  It's also possible Grell took some influence from cinema like Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961), or Hercules and the Captive Women (also 1961).

Morgan's past lives include fictional (and perhaps semi-fictional) characters.  Lancelot first comes to prominence in Chretien de Troyes' Le Chevalier de la Charette ("The Knight of the Cart") in the 12th Century, though his name is first mentioned in Chretien's Erec and Enide.  He's been an important part of the Arthurian mythos ever since. 

D'Artagnan was created by Alexandre Dumas in his novel The Three Musketeers, and appears in the two sequels (Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne).  The character was loosely based on a real person, Charles de Batz-Castlemore, Comte d'Artagnan, by way of a heavily fictionalized biography, Les mémoires de M. d'Artagnan by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras.

Morgan was also a couple of people of relative historical importance.  Jim Bowie (1796-1836) is notable for dying at the Alamo and giving his name to a knife, and Crazy Horse (1840-1877) for being an Oglala Lakota war leader, and possible participant at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

They Came From Inner Space

Spurred by my discussion of ‘80s toylines as gaming inspiration, Scott mentioned the Micronauts as another possibility, and set off a chain of enthusiastic agreement from just about everyone else. For me, the Micronauts of the Marvel comic are what I remember most fondly rather than the Mego toys than spawned it.

The cover to Micronauts # 1 (January 1979) shows the influence of Star Wars as much as the toyline. Particularly note black armored Darth--uh, Baron--Karza menacing the heroes. The similarities don’t end there. There are two droids (Biotron and Microtron), a princess (Marionette), and a hero who taps into an enigmatic, quasi-mystical force (The Enigma Force).

Despite those similarities, Micronauts has a lot of interesting ideas of its own, though the basic set-up is pure space opera: Commander Rann returns from a 1000 year (mostly suspended animation) exploration of molecular-model resembling worlds of the Microverse (a “sub-atomic” universe), to find his old teacher (Karza) has led an insurrection and become dictator of Homeworld. Rann teams up with the overthrown royals, Princess Mari (Marionette of the Farah Fawcett hair), and Acroyear (armored warrior of Spartak), and Bug, insectoid wisecracker.

A simple story, sure, but it's the details that really make it work. Baron Karza’s coup was supported by much of populace because he promised them immortality through the use of his DNA-altering Body Banks, which he also uses to make inhuman soldiers from political enemies. The Acroyear people of Spartak are the obligatory warrior race, and are never seen outside of their cool armor. They've also got slightly oversized mediveal weaponry sorrounded by energy and Kirby dots.  Unlike Darth Vader, Karza has a white armor-clad opposite number in the person of Prince Argon.

Micronauts had 57 issues of its original run. That was followed by a crossover limited series with the X-Men. The final series, Micronauts: The New Voyages, had writer Peter Gillis and artist Kelley Jones taking the team out of their familiar haunts and into unexplored regions of the Microverse. It’s a well written series, though strikes a different chord than the space operatic original, and serves to “finish” the Micronauts story.

So fan of the toys or no, those with an interest in, or looking for inspiration for, classic seventies cinematic space opera, ought to give Micronauts a look.

Inspiration from Weird Menace

"Weird menace" or "shudder" pulps featured lurid stories in the horror genre with bizarre villains hatching macabre plots, and graphic (for the era) scenes of torture and murder.

And they had some really great story titles.  Titles where thinking of the sort of adventure that might have said title is possibly better than reading the story.  Here, presented for your inspiration, are a few choice ones:

"Satan's Roadhouse" by Carl Jacobi, Terror Tales (Oct. 1934)

"Death Teaches School" by Nat Schachner, Terror Tales (April 1935)

"Devils in the Dust" by Arthur J. Burks, Dime Mystery (Dec. 1935)

"The Shriveling Murders" from Dr. Death (April 1935)

"Brides for the Swamp God" by J.G. Quinliven, Terror Tales (May 1936)

"The Molemen Want Your Eyes" by Frederick C. Davies, Horror Stories (April/May 1938)

"Girls for the Coffin Syndicate" by Russell Gray, Dime Mystery (April 1940)

"March of the Homeless Corpse" by Wayne Rogers from Terror Tales (March 1941)

Hell-Town

Signs on the side of the lonely, cracked roadways leading into Char Hill warn away would-be visitors. Even from the outskirts, the stench of burning is in the air, and there are faint tendrils of smoke. Char Hill is a ghost town, but was once a prosperous Steel League mining village built atop rich coal deposits. That was before the fire.

There is still argument over how the fire that made Char Hill uninhabitable got started. Whatever the cause, the coal seam fire that began a decade ago still smolders. As with previous such fires, the combustion of coal deposits either released (or spawned) mephiti--creatures sometimes called “imps”, but which are actually para-elementals of smoke (“airy fire”). Mephiti are cruel creatures, who delight in causing harm. They rose into the unsuspecting town on plumes of toxic gas.

Though some died with the emergence of the mephiti, rising temperatures, and clouds of poison gas, the fire grew slowly enough so that most townsfolk had ample warning. The town of Char Hill was quickly abandoned, and officially unincorporated.

Rumors persist, however, that some townspeople remain. Some are perhaps bootlegging alchemists seeking to derive valuable substances from the toxic vapors rising from underground. Others are cultists who believe an ancient god-thing was trapped in the coal-veins beneath the town and the fire is the means of the thing's phoenix-like resurrection. Experts dismiss this belief as baseless, and the product of brains perhaps already damaged by toxic inhalation.

Still, no thorough investigation of the town has been made since the fire began.

What's A Jeep?

Having recently gotten a couple of volumes of the E.C. Segar's Popeye by Fantagraphics books, I decided to stat up one of the series' most unusual creatures, Eugene the Jeep, who first appeared in the strip on August 9, 1936.

Jeep
# Appearing: 1d4
Alignment: Lawful
Movement: 120 (40)
AC: 5 (14)
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d4
Save: E1
Morale: 7

Jeeps are strange hybrids of wild dogs and alien, fourth dimensional cells.  They're found in Africa or some other exotic locale.  The size of a small dog, they appear as somewhat bear-like (myabe), often bipedal creatures, with longish tails.  Jeeps are highly intelligent, though incapable of speech.  They tend to communicate via body language. Jeeps are able to teleport (without error) short distances--in a manner simpler to blink dogs.  The creatures are also able to pass through solid (nonmagical) objects, or walk on ceilings, or even levitate in midair.

Getting Class

art by "Reno" Maniquis

In planning for my own Weird Adventures game (that I’ll hopefully been kicking off soon), I’ve been thinking about classes. The standard D&D classes don’t map as well to a pulpy world. What’s are archetypal for traditional genre fantasy isn’t as archetypal here. 

Now, this is not to say the standard D&D classes couldn't be used straight in fantasy pulp setting--fighters being the various tough guys, clerics the evil battling priest, etc.--but I think down that run lies something more like Shadowrun, not Captain Easy, Sam Spade, or the Green Lama.  Which is not meant to be an insult to Shadowrun, nor to suggest I'm not doing a bit of incongruous genre mashup myself, here.  I just don't want to loose that cheap whiskey-esque pulp flavor.

I suppose there are two solutions. One would be to add several more classes--Private Eyes, Gangsters, Mystics, etc., but I’m concerned with what the sheer number of these might be, and (a perennial issue in class base systems) what gets to be a class and what doesn’t. Is an ex-soldier just a fighter, while a gangster’s something different? Or vice versa? Or none of the above?

D20 Modern uses an interesting system wherein the classes are mapped to ability scores. There’s the Strong hero, Fast hero, Smart hero, and so on. This strikes me as a potentially adaptable system as it distills the all the various character types found in different types of pulp fiction to archetypes as unadorned as (maybe) the D&D basic classes are for standard fantasy.

My only concern is, does that take away some of the “flavor” and immediate role-recognition that more delineated classes provide.  I suppose there's D20 Modern once again, and the addition of "occupations"--but then have I just exchanged classes for "things that are sorta classes-lite?"  Of course, Warhammer FRPG used a similar sort of system, and I liked that implementation there.

Anybody got any thoughts in this regard?