Go to the Ants

Ant-Man opened this weekend and likely Marvel has another hit a hero, despite the wisdom repeated in even mostly positive review that the whole concept is ridiculously. Because you know, science fantasy Norse Gods speaking Renfair is gritty realism.

What a guy who shrinks and talks to ant is fantasy in a way super-soldiers, and capitalists in powered armor may not be. It's a a child-like fantasy; one where everyday items become hazards and improvised weapons. A running bath tube creates a tidal wave; a flying ant becomes a steed. It's ridiculous only in the way that Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz is ridiculous. Ant-Man is just a hero it's hard to grittify credibly. It's stuff too much fun.

if you like the Marvel films, you will like Ant-Man. Marvel Entertainment has their formula (for both better and worse) down to a science. The beats are similar and the humor is there. The review talking points (Perhaps passed out by the production company. They've done it before.) highlight how comedic it is, but I don't think it's really any more comedic than say Iron Man III. It certainly isn't a superhero comedy like The Green Hornet.  Likewise, reviewers will say it's different from the other Marvel films because it isn't about "saving the world"--which ignores Pym and Lang saying that's exactly what they're out to accomplish.

So ignore all that stuff and just enjoy. For the Marvel Comics fan, you get a hint of Hank Pym's Cold War secret hero career. You get to see the Wasp's finest hour. You get a glimpse of the Microverse--excuse me, Quantum Realm. A decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine any of that on the big screen.

The best stuff is the shrinking stuff, though. The special effects look really good and there are a couple of nice set-piece battles between shrunken combatants. The ants have character, too, even if the mix of species is a strange one for the film's location.

It's not perfect. There are some nonsensical bits in the script, that may have come from different versions being stitched together. Is Lang a recidivist criminal cat burglar or a mechanical engineer that burgled a dishonest company just once for revenge? Is Darren Cross made crazy by Pym particle exposure as everybody keeps saying even though we haven't seen him have any particular exposure until late in the film? And there is other stuff.

Fridge Logic, for the most part. These things won't bother you when you're watching one inch tall guys hurl toy trains at each other--and that's really for the best.

Azurthite Bestiary: Bad Seeds

Bad Seeds are made by evil magicians and the like out to undermind Good Azulina and the rightful order of the Land of Azurth. They are made from combination of a Green Man root, a moonless night, and an unwholesome ritual whose full details are regrettably quite easy to find in magical tomes. Depending on certain details of the rite and the place of planting, different types of Bad Seed are cultivated. 

 Twig Bad Seeds have the form of crude stick dolls or effigies. They wait at the side of lonely woodland trails or guard the abodes of witches in haphazard clusters. You must be very cunning and quick to see them move before they strike. There are stores of giant twig seeds that stride through the forest like wicker giants and throw victims in the cages of their chest. 

 Thorn Bad Seeds can stand upright if they wish, but mostly they roll like bramble bush tumbleweeds making rasping noises like the growl of a dog. The spilling of blood greatly excites them. They seem to be able to taste it on the air.

Vine Bad Seeds usually take the form of slithery masses and like to hide in dark places. Other than the susurrus of their movement, they make no other sound. They will often stalk prey, stealing small items and causing confusion before finally striking.

 Bad Seeds are statted like the comparable Blight in the Monster Manual.

Not a Bad Seed, but another plant creature: a Heap as rendered by David Lewis Johnson:

Wednesday Comics: Incredible Shrinking Heroes

Getting ready for Ant-Man this week? Here are a few comics to read to get into the mood for big superhero action in a small scale:

Know nothing about Ant-Man? This collection starts with the original character's first appearance (pre-superhero identity) back in 1962, then takes him through establishing himself as a hero, meeting his wife to be and helping her create a superhero identity, and giving up the ant thing to be a Giant-Man.

The Ant-Man of the film isn't Hank Pym, but Scott Lang. Ant-Man: Scott Lang will get you up to speed on the comic book version of Paul Rudd's character in the movie.

Marvel hasn't cornered the market on shrinking heroes. In fact, DC beat them to it in 1961 with the Atom. (Never mind that Quality's Doll Man had gotten there in 1944.)  Showcase Presents: The Atom vol. 1 chronicles the origin and earliest adventures of Ray Palmer, the Atom.

By the 80s, the shrinking hero just wasn't enough for the jaded fanbase, so Jan Strnad, Pat Roderick, and Gil Kane sent the Atom into a world Burroughsian lost world adventure. This wasn't the first time a hero had gotten to a lost world by shrinking: Ray Cummings had shrank his hero so he could romance the "Girl in the Golden Atom" in 1923, The Incredible Hulk had had a similar romance and adventure in 1971. But Sword of the Atom has guys riding frogs drawn by Gil Kane.

The Moving Pointcrawl

Over at the Hill Cantons blog, Chris has written a lot about the pointcrawl, which abstracts a map to the important points, eliding the empty places/boring stuff a hexcrawl or similar complete mapping would give equal weight. One unusual variation not yet explored is the crawling of moving points.

Admittedly, these would be pretty unusual situations--but unusual situations are the sort of stuff adventures are made from: Exploring a flotilla of ancient airships or the various "worlds" in a titan wizards orrery; Crawling the strange shantytown distributed over the backs of giant, migrating, terrapin. Flitting from tiny world to tiny world in a Little Prince-esque planetary system. Some of these sort of situations might stretch the definition of pointcrawl, admittedly, and to model some of them in any way accurately would require graphing or calculus, and likely both.

Let's take a simple case--something from an adventure I'm working on. Say the wrecks of several ships are trapped in a Sargasso Sea of sorts. The weed is stretchy to a degree, so the wrecks move to a degree with the movement of the ocean, but the never come completely apart.

The assumption (to make it a pointcrawl, rather than just a hexcrawl, where the points of interest move) is that there were pretty much only certain clearer channels a small boat could take through the weed--or maybe certain heavier areas that a person who wasn't too heavy could walk over without sinking in complete.

The map would look something like this:

Note that this map is pretty abstract, despite appearances. The distances or size of the weed patch aren't necessarily to scale with the derelict icons. Length of connecting lines is of course, indicative of relative travel distance. The colors indicate how "stretchy" an area is: blue can move d4, orange d6, and red d8 in feet? yards? tens of feet? Not sure yet. Anyway, whether this drift is closer or farther away would depend on a separate roll of 1d6 where odds equals farther and evens closer. Of course, they can't come any closer than the distance they are away on the map, so any "extra" distance would be a shift to one side or the other.

Zigzags denote a precarious patch, where there would be an increased risk of a sudden thickening (if I'm going with boat travel) or falling in (if I go with walking). Dots will denote an extra wandering monster or unusual event check.

So there are a lot of kinks to work out, but that's the basic idea.

Hyades Plains Drifter

Take McKinney's Carcosa, remove whatever homology to Masters of the Universe is there, replacing it instead with echoes of Bravestarr. For the more literary minded: take out some of the Lovecraft and replace it with elements of King's Dark Tower series. Now you've got a weird western on an alien world.

A Bone Man, probably

Drop those sorcerous rituals that upset some people and replace them with drugs. Now you've got an acid weird western on an alien world. That ought to be enough for any game, but you're a jaded bunch with a decadent palate so don't let the alien thing keep you from borrowing from Forteana related to the America West: tombs of giants, tiny mummies, underground lizard (or snake) men. Thunderbirds. Season to taste with Shaver mystery.

Saddle up, cowboy. Lost Carcosa awaits.

Here Comes the Moon Goon

I've blogged about these guys before--twice in fact. But I've never before had an illustration of their weird villainousness. Now I do, thanks to Matthew Adams.

Moon Goons get their name from their heads or masks, large, round, and faintly luminous like the Moon, and their vile behavior. The Moon Goons avoid the real moon, only striking when it is new. Their spindly, bone-white limbs are animated with odd gestures and faintly aglow despite the lack of moonlight. They are forever mumbling and conversing, but their lips never move and their speech is unintelligible.

Azurthite Bestiary: Heap

Heaps are lumbering creatures most commonly found in the bottomland swamps along the Yellow River in the Country of Yanth, particular in the environs of Lardafa, the Beggar City. They appear as anthropomorphic mounds of plant material, sometimes mixed in garbage.

Though only a few in the Land of Azurth are aware of their origins, Heaps are made when the process of generating a Green Man goes awry, leaving them unconnected to the spirits of nature, and dumb brutes, in the main. Heaps are nevertheless dimly aware of what their mission would have been and at least seem to intend to protect the forests where they dwell, though their means of doing so is not always effective.

Heaps are feared by most folk (and not without some reason),  but Lardafans view them with reverence and augur meaning from their mysterious comings and goings.

HEAP
large plant, neutral
AC 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 128 (15d10+45)
Speed: 20 ft.
STR 18(+4) DEX 8(-1) CON 16(+3) INT 8(-1) WIS 11(+0) CHA 7(-2)
Skills  Stealth +2
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing
Condition Immunities blinded, deafened
Senses passive Perception 10.

False Appearance. A heap looks a mound of vegetation if it lies motionless.

Actions:
Multiattack. A heap makes two slam attacks per round.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit 13(2d8+4) bludgeoning damage.