Random Images from Baroque Space

Art by Mel Birnkrant

A winged Devil from the Tartarean dark beyond Saturn.

Art by Bailey Henderson

Leviathan rises from the thick clouds of Jupiter.

A fop seen in a Jovian gaming house.

Pirates of the Belt in debauchery.

Bandits on the Planet of the Apes

"WHITE SANDS" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Alfonso Arau as Lope
Wardude
Broh
Dan-Nee
Stev
Bonobo Banditos

Synopsis: After repelling the Kreeg attack, the astronauts push the human tribes to get better organized. When theyy set out on their own raid against the mutant's hideout, they have to contend with an unexpected foe.

Commentary: This adventure featured the first appearance of a hereto unknown intelligent ape species: bonobos. The group captures a wounded bandito, Lope, and gently interrogate him. They get further confirmation that ape society is not homogeneous.

The astronauts also picked up a ground of Tehi warriors as henchmen associates. These guys look like the "White Feather Warriors" (the human ones) from 2nd Edition Gamma World module "The Cleansing War of Garik Blackhand":

The name "Wardude" is an homage to a hireling in Chris Kutalik's Hill Cantons campaign.

The group also found out that the warwheel apparently came from a Kreeg installation in White Sands, though their main base is somewhere farther to the West, and are also "deadly gunmen" in that direction.

Wednesday Comics: Holiday Gift Guide 2016

Give the gift of comics this year. Here are my admittedly idiosyncratic suggestions. You could do worse!

Tiger Lung: Step back to the Paleolithic this collection of shorts by Simon (Prophet and others) Roy for the exploits of the titular shaman. I reviewed Tiger Lung more fully here. Want still more shamanic action? Check out Terry LaBan's Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard-boiled Shaman.

Valerian & Laureline: The Empire of the Thousand Planets: With the upcoming movie from Luc Besson, now is a great time to check out the long-running Franco-Belgian comic by Jean-Claude Mezieres and Pierre Christin. The title of the film makes it seem like this volume was a strong inspiration.

Head Lopper: Badass, bearded warrior with a flair for decapitation takes a job to kill a wicked sorcerer. He's accompanied on his quest by an unconventional companion: still-animated (and talkative) severed head of a witch he decapitated in the past!

My recommendations from last year are still good too!

Alchemical Dwarves

The Dwarves of desert Country of Sang are not like the Dwarfs found elsewhere in the Land of Azurth or any other worlds. Most noticeable, they appear to be made of metal, one of the seven metals of antiquity, and they metals character informs that of the dwarf made from it. The dwarves of each metal are identical to each other, or very close to it.

Dwarves of Gold are the wise and just rulers.
Dwarves of Silver are the Priestesses, Keepers of Mysteries.
Dwarves of Mercury are the cunning mages and tricksters.
Dwarves of Copper are the healers and tenders of home and hearth.
Dwarves of Iron are the soldiers and warriors.
Dwarves of Tin are merchant, traders, and seneschals.
Dwarves of Lead are the labors and workers.

Return to the Planet of the Apes

After a few weeks hiatus for holiday stuff and other obligations, my Hexcrawling the Planet of the Apes will resume this week. For myself, the players, and any readers it might interest, I figured now would be a good time to collate links to what has come before:

Here was the initial player setup. When we started, they awoke from suspended animation to find the world they knew gone. After a trip to a plague ridden space station they made it to Earth (New Mexico). They encountered apes, human tribesmen, and (perhaps) a more technologically advanced enclave. That enclaved turned out not to be salvation, but a strange ghost of the past. The struck out across the desert to find the human tribes and wound up along the Rio Grande. They made a tentative alliance with the tribes and learned of their war with the more technologically advanced mutants--who staged a sneak attack. They managed to rout the mutants and defeat their fearsome Warwheel.

Here's the map of their travels to far:

Monster Manuals, No. Appearing: 2

I recently picked up both Volo's Guide to Monsters and the Tome of Beasts. Both I think are going to be useful monster books for my 5e game, but in different ways.

Volo's Guide is slimmer (just 223 pages). Its pure monster stat page count is even slimmer as it spends quite a view pages on other stuff. Part of that other stuff is new races, which is great, though I don't know how many of them I will use in my Land of Azurth game. Still, more examples to model DIY races is always good. The other part is Monster Lore--expanded info on previously published classic monsters, including lair maps and what not. I could see this being really useful and their are some good ideas here, but my current campaign uses some pretty variant interpretations of a lot of these monsters so it's of less utility for me.

The actually monsters include a lot of variants of existing creatures. Most of these don't excite me too much, The appendix of additional nonplayer characters will probably be the thing I use most in play.

The Tome of Beasts is beefier (426 pages), all of it traditional monster stats. Some of these feel like their not quite ready for primetime--but in someways that gives ToB a more daring feel compared to the "safer" Volo's Guide.  A bit like Fiend Folio vs. Monster Manual II, ToB also gives higher crit level monsters. I provides some much needed bosses compared to all the mooks and lackeys of the the official monster manuals. Though most of these monsters don't cry out to be immediately used in my campaign but their are a few (the Boreas and some of the Fey Lords and Ladies) I definitely want to play some adventures around.

While not indispensable, both of these bestiaries would be very useful for a 5e game. If you could only by one, I would say it depends on what you're looking to do. If you need more races or want to really flesh out certain "classic" D&D monsters (like the Mind Flayer, Beholders, or Giants), you probably want Volo's Guide. If you just need monsters and lots of them to stock your adventures, Tome of Beasts in probably though one you want.

More Baroque Space Backgrounds

More backgrounds for Daniel Sell's Troika! system:

CURSED ASTRO-MARINER
Your dead eyes have beheld things no man was meant to see. Adrift in the Tartarean reach beyond Saturn, you bore witness to the protean horrors of the Titans of Chaos, stared in cold wonder at legion ruined Gamorrahs of the rebellious Nephilim, and suffered at the peril of your immortal soul the sirens’ allure of alien Atlantean heathenry. You returned alive, but not unchanged.

Possessions
Vials of soporific
A locked box 6 inches square, 8 deep, whose contents you frequently examine, but show no one
Brace of Pistols
strange tattoos

Skills
2 Astrology
1 Healing
2 Pilot
2 Pistol Fighting
2 Second Sight

RAT-CATCHER
You are a Vermin Disposal Expert, though they often diminish your work, naming you merely "rat-catcher." But who among them has seen what strange vermin arise from the putrefaction of wastes of scores of space crews mingling in the cesspits of an asteroid? Much less hunted and captured those foul things? You have.

Possessions
One-eyed terrier, inured to space travel
d4 animal traps
d4 specimen collection jars, at least one contains a slime of some sort
Club
Blunderbuss

Skills
2 Awareness
1 Blunderbuss Fighting
2 Club Fighting
2 Tracking
3 Trapping
3 Tunnel Fighting

URCHIN
Gangs of half-feral children like yourself prowl the lower levels of cities and congregate in crude suburban camps. Many are eventually snared and sent to houses of correction for aggressive humoral adjustment, but a few incorrigibles such as yourself manage to elude that fate.

Possessions
A cheap Eidolon image of a beautiful woman you claim to be your mother to elicit sympathy
slapjack
knife

Skills
2 Climb
3 Sneak
2 Run
2 Sap Fighting
2 Knife Fighting