Appendix N for The World of Tomorrow

The World of Tomorrow, our science fantasy campaign, is pretty much built with a kitchen-sink approach. The initial pitch can basically double as the Appendix N: “moebius jodorowsky tangerine nightmare oranssi mutant pazuzu heavy metal barsoom carcosa acid police surf”

The main rules are: If it could be published as a DAW book or an ACE Double… if you can imagine it on a sick space/psych/prog rock album cover… if there is a conspiracy theory about it… then it fits.

Due to its eclectic and expansive nature, I could probably list off every piece 1960s-1970s sci-fi and dystopian fiction and every krautrock album ever. But that would defeat the purpose. So I will try to limit myself to a couple of key entries for each category.

Books: the biggest influence is Fred Saberhagen’s “Empire of the East” series. It’s chock-full of COOL SHIT that you can steal for your post-apoc sci-fant games. “The Elephant”? A must. Radar stations as scrying magic. Nuclear demon lords and their satraps. Good stuff. Read them if you can. The main protagonist is kinda bland… But the world is great. Add Lin Carter, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson's early stuff...

Movies: oh boy… Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes + Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 2001: Space Odyssey… Hard to narrow this down. Phase IV too, for sure.

Comics/art: yeah, Moebius is the big one here. No explanation necessary. Mike Grell's Warlord, another great hollow earth weird fiction title. A lesser known entry would be the stuff from Planet Comics, in particular "The Lost World" which ran in #21-69 (1942-1952).

Other RPG stuff: McKinney’s Carcosa (I use a bunch of tables for robots, weapons…), Gamma World, Mutant Crawl Classics – actually, from these last two, I borrow very little specifics, but definitely lean into the same atmosphere.

Computer games: Fallout 1 & 2, for sure. The most powerful motif for me is the Vault suit, which always marks the wearer as either/or a weirdo, a demigod, a target.

Last, but not least: history/non-fiction… I use my science-fantasy Frankentable extensively, so many characters have names from ancient cultures (Egyptian, Akkadian, Greek…). There are lot of ziggurats, statues, artifacts, stuff that comes from my academic interests. And my non-academic interests in weird shit, conspiracies, cults.

In collage form.

d8 entries from my commonplace book

I keep a commonplace book, a notebook where I record any kind of random idea or inspiration tidbit that can be utilized in games. It's a cool low pressure way of keeping ideas. Some of them come from media. Some are random things that come to my mind. I record them. There is no pressure to develop them into anything --- but at least they are not forgotten, and might come in handy. Here's a selection:

1. Lost-world style tribe who worship a great idol. The idol is in fact a spaceship (rocketship) that landed here, and since then the pilot has been staging divine epiphanies (Wizard of Oz?) – see also “Flash Gordon and the God of the Beastmen”, Flash Gordon #5, 1967, King Comics.
2. Tribe of reptiloid creatures, who currently live in a surprisingly democratic society. However, there is a great danger looming. Their race can rejuvenate/live forever, as long as they hibernate from time to time for a 100 years. The greatest tyrant of their history is soon returning from hibernation and will surely overpower the newly-formed democracy (aided by his troops that also went with him to “sleep”). Their place of hibernation is well-hidden… Quest to find it and destroy them, before they can enact their hideous plans?... (see Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World TV show, S01E03 “More Than Human”, 1999, for Roman Reptile inspiration).
3. If the party is imprisoned, the local authority (prince, king…)’s representative approaches one of them, who is the most interesting (e.g. a Magic-User = man of knowledge, or a Fighter = mighty adventurer). The character taken to an audience with the authority and is asked to regale stories about their adventures.
4. An expedition to the North, to retrieve “antediluvian” bones and tusks. Superstitious local folks. Sub-arctic perils. Greedy merchants looking for ivory. And perhaps an ancient vampyric creature, that wishes to relive its youth by feeding on the beasts of yore…
5. Giant hermit crab in post-apocalyptic wasteland uses burnt-out vehicle as its shell. As seen in The Barren Earth, “The Long Trek”, incl. in The Warlord, #64, DC.
6. Swift-moving glacier. In a year’s time the lower terminus will reach a settlement, while up in the mountains a dungeon or cave will be revealed.
7. Amphibian city; a city of amphibian creatures, their buildings are half-submerged towers. Movement is possible by swimming, boats, and the occasional walkway.
8. Sea of Primordial Muck. Created by a botched terraforming attempt – the aliens liquefied a large territory as part of the process, but never got around to reshaping it. Perhaps only a small island is shaped in the middle of the sea.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Tarkan vs. the world

TARKAN VERSUS THE VIKINGS features a mustached villain, who is the leader of a Viking clan that worships an octopus god-monster. The Vikings wish to kidnap a beautiful girl to sacrifice her to their demigod, but the heroic Tarkan (Kartal Tibet), aided by his dog, Kurt, is there to save the day.

All right! Some mad Turkish pulps! Based on comics by Sezgin Burak. 

Sir Leo Wooldrich, occult investigator

In the early 1970s, there was a comics magazine called Dracula. It featured Spanish comics translated into English. Not about Dracula, though. They featured original genre / pulp heroes, like the sword & sorcery warrior Wolff, the sword & planet / science fantasy Agar Agar, and Sir Leo, "an English aristocrat - a hunter of evil. A man whose life is dedicated to the destruction of those nameless horrors that threaten mankind".

The stories were all presented with lush psychedelic art, swirling colors and grotesque imagery. Personally, I really dig the fusion of horror with trippy 1970s aesthetics (Dracula AD 1972 will always be dear to me...)

The stories about Sir Leo (or Sir Leo Wooldrich) were drawn by José Beá, and, damn, they look amazing!!

Ian Miller's covers for Swamp Thing

Ian Miller's covers for Swamp Thing (issues #104-109) are insane!
(collected by fieldofshit @ tumblr)

Warren Publishing comics & mags online

Just sayin'... Countless issues of Warren comics and magazines are up in the repository of the ever wonderful archive.org... Mostly 70s & 80s stuff, Vampirella, Creepy and many more!

<<<LINK>>>

Addendum: Man-Thing / Scenic Dunnsmouth crossover

Just a short addition to my previous post:
a Man-Thing / Scenic Dunnsmouth crossover would be   a w e s o m e .

Scenic Dunnsmouth by Zzarchov Kowolski is an adventure module, focusing on a single (randomly generated via the innovative kit featured in the book) village, located next to a swamp: "within the rot are mysteries to be solved, evil to be fought, and the Weird to be encountered". I don't want to spoil the adventure, but I think it's okay to say that both the Dunnsmouth and the Citrusville swamps are locations of cosmic importance... If you read & run the adventure, you would agree that adding a hulking, good-natured, cryptic Man-Thing to your Dunnsmouth campaign is a logical step!

It came from the Swamp in 1972

Another entry on highly inspirational comics!

Diversions of a Groovy Kind posted a handful of flabbergasting splash pages from the Man-Thing stories that appeared in Marvel's "Adventure into Fear", #10-19. I have only read a couple of issues from the solo "Man-Thing" comics, so it's high time to delve into it again! Especially that these iterations of the Man-Thing represent something that really makes me tick: weird, bizarro, anything goes ventures, great art, and, well, the 1970s.

Groovy!

#13, "Where Worlds Collide" sparked my interest, as the first page features a bunch of cultists engaged in some sort of a ritual-slash-pep-talk. They are led by Joshua Kale (Jennifer Kale's grandfather -- magic runs in the family!) and not only do they know of the Man-Thing, but consider it...

...humankind's last hope! (Fear #13)

Don't let the purple robes and the occult paraphernalia misguide you - these are the good guys. Then all kinds of dangerous stuff happens, including a jump to a demon dimension and some exorcism - there's a good re-cap here.

Obviously, in the Hammer Studios version of "Where Worlds Collide", Joshua Kale would be played by Cristopher Lee.

Or maybe Cushing. Whoever is available.

Why am I talking about all this?
Basically I want to play an RPG that is inspired by

1. occult-tinged comics, like the Man-Thing, Scorpio Rose, Dr. Strange, Dr. Orient, some Dylan Dog maybe?
2. swansong-era Hammer Horror, especially those few set in contemporary settings ("Dracula AD 1972") and their Wheatley adaptations,
3. folk horror (this is a huge topic to get into right now, but I LOVE all this stuff),
4. etc.

This could be an Unknown Armies game - it is a modern setting, after all. Or possibly something to run with the Weird Tales classes from Fantastic Heroes & Witchery? It has rules for both "human" and "inhumane" player characters, stats for firearms, a plethora of spells to pick from (of course, magic in this game would be more ritualistic)... And overall, I feel it's a better fit as far as theme and atmosphere go.

The landscapes of Weirdworld

I'm currently reading Weirdworld, a comic book from Marvel's "Secret Wars" line. Written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Mike Del Mundo, it focuses on Arkon, the barbarian chieftain, who tries to find his way back to his homeland, Polemachus. His adventures are mostly true 80s gritty high-octane smackdowns. Issue #1 opens with him fighting an incomprehensible all-teeth tentacle monster in a river heading towards a waterfall. In the very same issue he battles ogres mid-air over the control of a dragon (the ogres also have heavy artillery support). So there's a lot of action. But we also see how Arkon is just "going through the motions": his hands do the chopping, but all he really thinks about is Polemachus.

The only thing that penetrates his mind is the utter weirdness of the world he was transported into, the surrounding landscape. As Arkon himself admits, he has merely come...

...to enjoy the view,

And holy smoke, are those landscapes magnificent!

Mike Del Mundo's art is amazing. This is the "Skull Mountain is called Skull Mountain because it's a mountain in the shape of a skull" school of fantasy illustration, delivered with outstanding skill and style and creativity. Earl Norem would be proud. Weirdworld is a puzzle, or rather a patchwork of many different worlds: lush jungles, crystal spires growing out of oddly colored sand, rivers of molten lava...

Arkon is trying to make sense of the topography, and his most prized possession is a hand-drawn map -- I bet he will turn this into a wicked hexcrawl when he gets back to his homeworld!

PS.: You know what it all reminds me of?

Samurai Jack.