Dungeon Games

Like a whole lot of other people in America, I caught The Hunger Games this weekend. I’ve never read the book--I actually kind of avoided it as a young adult, Running Man/Battle Royale ripoff. Apparently, I was a little hasty in my judgement, because I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

One of the author’s stated inspirations was the myth of Theseus. Young heroes, mazes, and monsters suggest a way that a sort of Hunger Games set-up could be adapted to a typical fantasy rpg set-up.

Sure X-Crawl does some of this, but it's set the in modern day, and seems to view its dungeoncrawlers as celebrity athletes, borrowing inspiration from Running Man to a degree. Things might go a bit differently when (Like The Hunger Games), one plays up more of a American Idol-esque reality show contest aspect. And of course, there’s the sacrifice-chosen-by-lottery part.

Say some great empire (possibly magical or even magitech) demands a tribute of youths from its conquered territories. These teens are given a bit of training then sent into the labyrinth--or dungeon. Other than perhaps multiple monsters, that's pretty much the Theseus set-up, but an empire with D&D-ish magic at its disposal can get a lot closer to the media saturated world of The Hunger Games. Maybe the empire keeps it’s citizens happy bread and circuses style with remote-viewed observation of the dungeon doings.

The set-up would raise some interesting questions. Did the decadent empire build the dungeons for this purpose (and magically create the monsters therein) or are they just exploiting them? Is there a way the young dungeon-crawlers can turn their new abilities and the skills they’ve gained to their advantage?

Scientia Potestas Est

[This relates to my previous "Apocalypse Under Ground" posts, so take a look.]

Wizardry is a curse on all mankind.

This is what the common folk say, and sages acknowledge the rise of arcane knowledge went hand in hand with the emergence of the underground--perhaps more than once in history. Wizards are aware of how they are viewed (and feared) and are unconcerned. When you’ve held the words that encapsulate the true forms of reality in your mind--when you’ve experienced true gnosis--you’re above petty concerns.

Practitioners of the arcane art have always existed. Mostly they’re solitary, exploring their art removed from the intrusion of the mundane world. The opening of the underground changed that. It's entrances glowed like an arcane beacon. Those who might have lived their whole lives without ever knowing they had the talent were transformed by what they encountered, reborn into a new world--if they survived their first delve.

The old wizards came out of seclusion to tutor these fledging sorcerers--and to use them them to grow their own power with secrets wrested from below. In time, the adventuring wizards came to surpass their masters, sometimes frighteningly so. These new grandmasters took apprentices of their own, for much the same reasons--though as wizards grow older and more steeped in the arcane, their thoughts and desires sometimes grow more alien, and their whims more capricious.

One question above all concerns the grandmasters, though they seldom speak of it, even in their rare conclaves of peers: Does the arcane have a life of it’s own? Does the symbolary that is Man’s closest approximation of the true description of the universe have its own agenda? If so, does it favor Man--or the Monsters?

Snake, Giant Constrictor

Science has validated this scene from Milius's Conan.  Titanoboa cerrejonensis is the largest snake every discovered at up to 50 feet long, 3 feet in diameter at the thickest part of its body, and weighing in at 2500 pounds.  The giant constrictor in the 2nd Edition Monster Manual would be puny in comparison at a mere 30 feet in length--though that would be about the size of Gigantophis, the second largest snake ever discovered

Because the size of anything becomes more relatable when compared to a city bus, here you go:

There's also this life sized model in Grand Central Station (there's a SyFy original in that), captured in mid-swallow:

Titanoboa slithered through the Paleocene, around 58-60 million years ago, but records from that period are spotty at best.  There were probably a few around in ancient Atlantis or Lemuria, or some other forgotten continent.

Brain-Eating Beatniks

Is how the wizard "Amazing" Kreskin described their foes in the graveyard of Barrow Island.  In last night's Weird Adventures game (in Lorefinder), Boris, Kreskin, and Don Diabolico were ambushed by ghoul hooligans out for dangerous kicks.  The punks got danger in a lethal dose: The fact that that were teenagers didn't spare them from the guns of our hardboiled adventurers.  Only one of the three attackers escaped with his life.

The trouble with ghouls didn't stop there.  The casket of John Vandemaur (what the guys had been hired to get) had already been removed from the family crypt.  A little investigation led them to another crypt with the sounds of jazz and poetry recitation coming from within.  Stealthy scouting by Diabolico revealed a number group of young ghouls who not only had the casket they were looking for, but were in the company of the missing debutante, Sue Ann Wylde.

Kreskin's pulled a little hypnotism on them allowed the casket and the girl to be extracted with a shot being fired.  The poetical rebel that led the band of miscreants didn't go down so easy, though.  He had a head full of aklo and was plugged into the dread outsider gods of the anarchists.  He pulled a switchblade made of swirling darkness.  Fortunately for our gang (and unfortunately for the kid) he wasn't impervious to bullets.

Retreiving the casket led to more surprises.  Inside wasn't the body of John Vandemaur, but instead the quite living (and angry), Indrid Bliss.  Bliss was bond and magically gagged by somebody.  He was evasive about how this happened, and who did it, but he seemed to blame John Vandemaur--who he said was still very much alive.

Bliss wasn't much inclined for conversation.  He tried to escape once by a dimenson door, only to be nabbed by Boris.  The group hoped that Heward Kane might be able to illuminate the situation more, but they were denied the opportunity to introduce him to Bliss by the intervention of a gargoyle who spirited Bliss away.

Checking in with Kane they find (unsurprisingly) that's he's at a loss to explain any of this--but he does tell them Viviane Vandemaur (the supposed widow) wants to meet with them.

To be continued.

Warlord Wednesday: Full Circle (Part 2)

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...

"Full Circle"

Warlord Annual #3 (1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo.

Synopsis: After a short ride into a canyon, the hunting party (see Part 1) encounters...The Dragon-Lizard!

Daamon explains that the greatest honor goes to the hunter who rides closest to the beast—and he offers Morgan a shot at it. As Morgan urges his mount closer, an arrow flies into its flank. The creature goes down, taking Morgan with it. Worse yet, they’ve attracted the dragon-lizard’s attention.

Shakira rides in to help him, though Morgan warns her against getting too close. After she lands a spear in the monster’s neck, it turns on her.

Morgan jumps on to its back and:

The monster falls dead. Daamon rides up and expresses his relief that neither of them was seriously hurt. Morgan doesn’t buy it—nor the “accident” that caused his mount to fall.

When they get back to the palace, one of Daamon’s lackeys tells him he has an urgent message from the herald of the Red-Moon God. Morgan has Shakira change it cat form to do a little spying as Daamon heads off in a hurry.

Daamon enters a private chamber with a computer and screen. An image of one of the Alaces Shirasi aliens appears. The alien wants to know about the ships that recently landed near the city. Daamon stalls, apparently not wanting to turn the ships over to the aliens. He’s save when the alien detects Shakira’s presence in the room.

Daamon blasts the cat with magic. His power not only traps her but transforms her back into human form. The alien wants her for experimentation. Daamon tries to protest, but the alien reminds him that he owes the Red-Moon for the technology they provided.

Meanwhile, Morgan and the others are working on the timeships. Reno’s figured out a way to use the timeships they have to draw the others out of null-time.

Morgan begins to wander what Shakira’s up to. On his return to the palace, he looks up just in time to see Daamon flying toward the Red Moon on a skysled--with an unconscious Shakira in tow. Morgan grabs one of Daamon’s lackeys and demands to know about the Red Moon. The man tells him that’s where the god dwells—and where Lord Daamon takes the sacrifices. Morgan’s response:

“I’ll see him in hell first!”

To be continued.

Things to Notice:

• We finally get the origin of the swan-ships.  S.W.A.N. is "Strategic Warfare Alternative, Non-nuclear"
• The Alces Shirasi are revealed--surprising no one.

Where It Comes From:

Though again we get a hunt with a nonaccidental accident like in issue #40.  The Red Moon-God is revealed to be the alien race the Alces Shirasi, last seen in issue #18.

Curse of the Wolf

Besides the usual sorts of lycanthropes, the City sometimes sees a rarer sort created by an elixir from the Outer Planes. Known as the Potion of Werewolfism, the magical elixir is thought to be brought to the Prime Material Plane by agents unknown from the Land of Beasts. It appears as a shockingly effervescent liquid of shifting color within a somewhat oversized test tube stoppered with a cork.

Imbibing the liquid has the immediate effect of transforming the drinker into an anthropomorphic wolf resembling the inhabitants of the Land of Beasts. Despite the startling change, people encountering the person for the first time in werewolf form will not react as if anything is unusual: such is the extraplanar magic of the potion.  This initial transformation lasts 1d100 minutes, but there is a 50% chance that the potion has given the imbiber the hiccups and each hiccup will bring a shift between forms. After the initial transformation, the imbiber will return to normal, but the wolf form will re-emerge ever night at sundown.

Persons suffering from this werewolfism aren't ravening beast like common lycanthropes but are compulsive carousers and cads. No attractive member of the opposite sex is safe from their crude come-ons. While in werewolf form a individual can be hurt, but quickly shrugs off any damage sustained (regenerating like trolls). They do not have any particular susceptibility to silver.

Victims of this “werewolf curse” often make themselves destitute with their spending and unwelcome in any night-spot in town with their skirt-chasing as they fulfill their wolfish appetites.

Wandering Through the Graveyard

Barrow Island now serves as the City's potter's field, but it has been the site of burials going back even to pre-colonial times.  It's located close to Empire Island in the Wyrd River.  Despite it's proximity, there are no bridges with the island as their destination.

The Mortuary Division of the City Department of Hospitals ships an average of around 200 corpses to the island weekly (as well as amputated limbs) from it's offices at Blackmoore Hospital.  The simple and unadorned pine boxes are laid three deep with a marker inscribed with a code by the barrow men.

The public is allowed limited visitation to the island. A ferry leaves from a terminal at the end of 14th Street.  Ferries leave from the terminal at ten in the morning and two in the afternoon.  The return trips from the Barrow Island docks leave at noon and four.  Non-official visitors at other times require special permission.

Here's a rough map of the island (scale: 1 in.=600 ft.):

The dark paths are paved or cobbled roads.  The lighter ones are trails or less well-kept routes.  The building at the junction of the paths is the mortuary headquarters.  Here photos and descriptions are kept on the unidentified bodies in the potter's fields, as well as older burial records of the other cemeteries (if they exist).  The buildings behind it are storage and some staff quarters, and the power plant (a former crematorium).

There are other buildings on the island: the decaying remnants of the former settlement and the shanties of barrow men.

In the south of the island, the dashed line represents the path of the Wychwire Bridge.  One support column of the bridge stands on the island and houses an elevator down from the bridge that can only be accessed with a key.

At night, when the barrow men cluster around their campfires and tell their macabre tales, the island becomes a more dangerous place.  Various forms of undead have been known lurk amid its crypts and mausoleums.  Ghouls (not undead--but cannibalistic) occasionally make in-rounds onto the isle before the Barrow Men can drive them off.  If the tales of the barrow men are to be believed, stranger less well-known horrors are sometimes encountered--but of course, the barrow men don't let truth get in the way of a good story.