Bigger and Better! A New Random Appendix N Generator

James over at Adventures in Gaming v2 took my throwaway idea from last week and ran with it! Check out his much more comprehensive generator on his blog.

Random Appendix N Campaign Concept Generator

Need a campaign idea or at least a prompt to develop your own? Just roll on the following table based on the AD&D "Appendix N" and fill in the blanks! 

Protagonists like [A] in a setting like [B] with magic like [C].

Roll     Author

1         Poul Anderson

2         Leigh Brackett

3         Lin Carter

4         Edgar Rice Burroughs

5         L. Sprague De Camp

6         De Camp & Pratt

7         Lord Dunsany

8         PJ Farmer

9         Gardner Fox

10       Sterling Lanier

11       Fritz Leiber

12       H.P. Lovecraft

13       Abraham Merritt

14       Michael Moorcock

15       Fred Saberhagen

16       Magaret St. Clair

17       J.R.R. Tolkien

18       Jack Vance

19       Manly Wade Wellman

20       Roger Zelazny

So, I got A=17, B=20, and C=12, which gives me: Protagonists like JRRT, a setting like Zelazny, and magic like H.P. Lovecraft. I'll interpret that this way: There's a tidally locked planet (suggested by Jack of Shadows), where the nightside is dominated by Elder god-horrors with an oppressed human class in a technological realm, and the dayside is a sylvan realm of elves and dwarves, who seek to keep back the encroaching hegemony of the nightside.

One more example: A=4, B=14, C=10. ERB, Moorcock, and Lanier. This is an easy one. A group of "modern" Earth folk find themselves in post-apocalyptic realm of knights and chivalry where psychic powers are viewed as magic.

Give it a try!

Wednesday Comics: Drome

Last week was a big one for graphic novels for me. I picked up four, and two of the three I've finished, I liked a lot. I wrote about The Avengers in the Veracity Trap over on the Flashback Universe blog, but here I wanted to talk about Drome by Jesse Lonergan. 

Drome is a creation myth in a world part Kirby's New Gods and part Metal Hurlant. He draws bits from a lot of different sources, I imagine, including the association of the platonic solids with the classic elements, but much of it echoes events in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

A black, horned, male deity creates humans, and they war upon each other and the beasts of the world until a white, mohawked or crested female deity sends a heavily muscled demi-goddess born of water to subdue the humans, then teach them civilization. Later, a bestial, nature demigod born of Earth becomes the lover of the god-queen. The two must deal with the arrival of a rampaging spirit of fire, then a rebellion of jealous humans who unleash a cosmic bull.

Lonergan's style is integral to the telling of his story. The pages are often broken in equal-sized squares which are just as likely to be a grid imposed on the scene or part of the scene as they are to organize the story spatially or temporally. There is relatively little dialogue, leaving the images to tell most of the story.

I read the story digitally, but I'm considering picking up the hardcover because it's gorgeous and a work I think I will revisit. It's definitely made me want to seek up Lonergan's other work.

It's A Madhouse!

This weekend I got my (first) shipment from Magnetic Press and the Planet of the Apes RPG Kickstarter. The books are gorgeous and the extra swag (including a cloth map of Ape City) is suitably well done. 

The game focuses on the original POTA continuity, not the 21st Century prequel/reboot films. Hopefully there will be a supplement for that in the future, but obviously the original film era is what most people (including myself) really want. Thankfully, the Burton film was likewise ignored.

The game uses the "Magnetic Variant" of West End Game's D6 system: you roll a bunch of six-sided dice and total the result, comparing it to a difficulty. There have been some modernizations and modifications, but having not played a D6 game in years, I'm not sure the extent of them. It does use a wild die to add additional consequences (positive or negative) to the results of a roll giving the "yes/no, and" and "yes/no but" sorts of spread. The Core book covers rules (and gives archetypes) for ape, astro-naut (they always spell it that way), mute, future human, and mutant characters. There's a clever detail where it is suggested (similar to the Cavemaster rpg) that the players of the bestial, future humans attempt to communicate with the other players only by gesture or pantomime, assuming they are in a mixed character types party.

After equipment, the rest of the book is given over to gamemaster (Lawgiver, in this case) stuff: setting info, campaign advice/suggestions, and adversaries/monsters.

Additionally, I got the ANSA Files Sourcebook, which details the era (or eras, really) related to the original film series. Really, the core book gave the essentials, but this book deep dives into the various time periods of each film, gives suggestions for running games in each, and stats prominent NPCs. I don't know that anyone would want to play a Cold War, space race game in an alternate 1970s, but with this supplement, you could!

In addition to the new films, I'd like to see more coverage of the TV show era and the ability to play speaking humans Also, delving into some of the more gonzo aspects of the various comic series would be cool for a supplement, too.

The Planet of the Apes rpg isn't as yet available to non-backers, but Amazon has pre-orders up for January, and I would suspect it becomes available in pdf prior to that.

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1984 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on August 23, 1984.

Fury of Firestorm Annual #2: Conway and Arthur Byron Cover do one of those occasional illustrated text piece stories that I almost always find dull (which is the case here). The art by Kayanan and Colon doesn't seem up to their usual standards, so maybe it bored them too? Anyway, Ronnie plays poorly at a game and worries about letting the team down at the next one because he's hallucinating villains all over the place. To make matters worse, some weird alien, exiled by the Guardians of the Universe, has crashed on earth and decides to use Firestorm as a living power plant to get him into space again. The alien is thwarted, and Ronnie shoots the winning buzzer-beater, redeeming himself. The source of the hallucinations turns out to be the emerging psychic powers of the student manager of the team. The story has real Spider-Man vibes, but of the sort of Spider-Man story you might see in other media. 

Action Comics #561: Despite a cover by Barreto promising something with more, well--action, Kupperberg and Schaffenberger /Jensen provide a silly and mostly stakes-free story of the Toyman setting up a fake quiz show so he can trick a childhood rival into revealing what happened to the very first toy the villain made. The second story by Bridwell and Boring is marginally better with a red kryptonite exposure splitting two Supermen from Clark Kent: one, a Superman of the future with "future powers" and an eight-year-old Superboy from 1963. 

It's not like there haven't been stories done in a more modern storytelling vein or arcs with truly dangerous villains, but we keep coming back to this sort of continuity-free, low action material like it's still the Silver Age. I suspect the blame lies with Schwartz in the editor's seat.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #25: Kupperberg and Sherman-Tereno/Rodriquez open with Arion lost in the Darkworld with no way home after the defeat of Garn Danuuth. Guided by his father, he begins searching through the everchanging landscape for the Nexus, the one place where he might escape. He encounters some alien beings likewise trapped, and they become traveling companions for a time, but they encounter only violence and hardship. Eventually, Arion finds himself at the Nexus. Its elderly guardian demands Arion fight him to the death. Only one of them may leave Darkworld. Arion rejects all the violence and refuses to fight the old man. In being willing to be sacrificed, he frees both himself and the old alien, and they return home.

While the solution to Arion's conundrum was fairly obvious, I thought, this sojourn into Darkworld was a nice change of pace. 

All-Star Squadron #39: I owned this issue as a kid. Any new hero appearance was interesting to me, and I was unaware of Amazing Man prior to this. Thomas and Hoberg/Collins follow-up the events of last issue as a group of All-Stars arrive in Detroit to find Amazing Man. They encounter more racism than they expected and a Phantom Empire (Klan stand-in) rally attempting to drum up support for stopping black migrants to the city from getting housing. In a clash, Amazing Man is defeated by the masked Real American, who is somehow able to drain his powers. Trying to serve the law rather than justice, the All-Stars are spurned by both sides in the conflict. Meanwhile, in Washington, Green Lantern and Hawkman fail to persuade President Roosevelt to lend a hand, so they decide to fly off to aid their comrades.

Detective Comics #544: Nocturna is forced to attack the Thief of Night to save Batman's life, but the Thief gets away. She reveals she knows Batman's secret identity and again suggests they marry and be parents to Jason. Otherwise, she'll keep his secret, but she will still compete with Bruce for custody. Batman is so enchanted by her that he just has to get away rather than give an answer. The trail of the Thief is a dead end, but Batman has better luck pressuring the recently released hitman that tried to kill Bullock. The assassin reveals he's a member of Fang's crew doing the bidding of Mayor Hill. Convinced Hill is also responsible for Bruce's legal troubles, Batman vows to take the Mayor down. Meanwhile, Nocturna turns up the charm on Jason, too.

Omega Men Annual #1: Moench again leans into his very science fantasy interpretation of the Omega Men, as he and Niño/Smith revisit the situation with Harpis' missing wings. They fly through space (telekinetically, not by flapping, if that matters) chased by Hokum and the Citadel and Harpis. The other Omega Men are chasing after her. They come to the planet Sindromeda where a long-ago accident has created a hellworld and a psychically empowered monster. Confronting her on past, and with the help of a balloon-like grafalloon, Harpis reclaims her wings, but refuses to kill the creature that had usurped them. Whether this controversial-among-her-fellows decision leads to good or ill in the future is purposely left unrevealed.

Sun Devils #5: Rik and Anomie are not quite as dead as it appeared last issue, but they are still captured trying to escape. Their friends eventually come to the rescue but not before we get some of Scylla's backstory--and the revelation that there's a traitor among the Sun Devils. Rik and crew have to get themselves out of harsh interrogation by the sauroids, but it comes at the cost of Shikon's arm.

Super Powers #5: Kirby takes the reigns for this final issue, and the art gets a bit better, but unfortunately Theakston's inks smother a lot of Kirby's detail, so it doesn't look all that great. Despite the failures of Darkseid's emissaries, his invasion of Earth commences, but Metron joins in on the side of the heroes. The seed of Apokolips' armies defeat are in the powers given to Earth's villains. Anyway, I guess this helped sell toys. It was also probably a lot of kids' first introduction to Kirby.

Tales of the Legion #317: Newell works from a plot by Levitz/Giffen as Wildfire finds himself again in the Dream Dimension with the two Invisible Kids. Invisible Kid II has figured something out about these strange evens and reveals that Lyle Norg is actually a demon looking to trap them. The two manage to trick the creature and escape.

In the backup by Levitz/Newell and Tuska/Kesel, the other Heroes of Lallor conspire to help Duplicate Boy regain his confidence and his powers as he mops over Shrinking Violet dumping him.

World's Finest Comics #309: Busiek and a journeyman Texiera with inks by Alcala have Superman made the trustee of wealthy businessman Raymond Arnau's estate. Since Arnau appears to have been murdered, the selection of Superman seems particular significant, so he asks Batman to help him investigate. After some investigative work, the two heroes discover that Arnau's former partner Crane is wearing a powered suit and running a criminal operation as Quantum--and he murdered Arnau when he found out. As seems to happen a lot these days, Quantum's suit is able to emit Kryptonite radiation, but Batman is able to take out the villain while he's gloating. 

A Few More Words from the Wyvern's Prophet

Work in progress from Jason

While we're awaiting the technically still awaiting the announcement of the winners of the Appx. N Jam, I've been thinking about what's next for my project. Specifically, I'd like to do an expanded to include things I just could fit into 4 pages.

This will include things like more GM guidance for how to run the factions, particularly once their "balance" has been disrupted by the PCs arrival, and some additional encounters including a chance to visit the accumulator core of the installation and learn the strange fate of Dhu Rojat, former keeper.

Best of all though, it means more art from Jason Sholtis.

This won't be massive expansion. It's still intended to be a minor adventure. A side encounter in a hexcrawl, perhaps. Hopefully, though, this version will improve upon the basic concept. I'm probably bring it to drivethru as a pay what you want.

Cover Design

 I have been recently thinking about adding a page on the blog with a complete listing of my rpg related works including both things I have written and things for which I did some graphic design. Easily, some of my best collaborations in this regard have been with Jason Sholtis.

I'm particularly proud of the alternate covers I did for Completely Unfathomable, though I wasn't directly involved with the final decisions and preparation for print, and with the rush to get the project over the finishline, they maybe didn't turn out as well as they might have.

The one that was used for the final cover was this one with refer to as the "blacklight cover." It isn't blacklight, really, but I colored Jason's art in that garish sort of way to look like it might be.

Originally, we had designed it to use the logo I had made for the original Operation Unfathomable, but on seeing the final mockup Jason was gracious enough to let me quickly do another one I thought would fit the image better.

I had originally designed other covers for the various editions of the book, in the end I believe they just went with the one and the others were just given as extras? Anyway, my favorite of all of them was the faux bubble card wrapper cover:

Recently, Jason and I collaborated again on a cover for my Appx. N Jam submission. He held off his usual grayscale shading to make it easier for me to color. I added some texture in the background I hoped support his great image. The logo hand-drawn (or handconstructed digitally really) based on the title text of the Ace Double edition of People of the Lens by Leigh Brackett was actually the first thing done. Jason and I worked out the cover layout in discussion and then he drew the image.