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 The Leigh Brackett Solar System—often termed the classic "Planetary Romance" setting—blends hard-boiled noir, colonial exploitation, decadent alien antiquities, and melancholic space opera. Unlike the sweeping galactic empires of hard sci-fi, Brackett’s Solar System is a gritty, frontier-driven setting of trade companies, lawless outposts, dying alien races, and ancient cosmic mysteries Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

What started out as a potential Act III for the module I'm working on has... expanded.

9 nearly full pages of old-school mega-mega-mega-dungeon. 

All created using the random tables on pages 170-172 of the AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax, published in 1979.

Why? Because drawing dungeons from just the scratch of my imagination has become kinda boring. 

I marked my entry point in the center of a page and simply went with whatever happened. It was linear at first, but it soon expanded; side passages upon side passages, straight, diagonal, parallel, intersections -- 4-ways, Xs, Ys, Ts, all leading to chambers and rooms of all shapes and sizes (it's implied but never explicitly stated that rooms have doors and chambers do not). These tables are designed to go on and on and on; there are occasional dead-ends, but if you don't consciously stop it, it probably will not stop (25% of periodic-checks introduce side passages and 50% of side passages introduce multiple side passages).

I wanted every passage to take you deeper down the rabbit-hole, so no looping was allowed until deeply forward for every path. Every new corridor goes underneath any room or passage it crosses, but eventually loops do occur, plenty of them. At times, it's like solving a puzzle; decisions have to made, to connect or not connect? Sometimes I beg for a dead-end and sometimes I have no choice but to place one and sometimes a loop is allowed. This place is wild. I get lost just looking at it. If players were mapping it, they'd fuck up quickly, just as they would if it were a real place.

This process also reinforces the notion of space; not every room will be occupied (could/should still be interesting though) and there are many long, twisting corridors. Noise wouldn't travel here very well, not clearly. Certainly you might hear echoes and clangs and screams, but they would haunt like distant nightmares. It's easy to see adventurers snooping about, even fighting, without disturbing much of anything at all. What about the goblins in the next room? With Gygax's system, chances are, there are no goblins in the next room. 

Eventually I came to the edge of the first page, all four edges, and thought, what the hell, let's keep going, and before long, it became clear that it would bleed over onto at least 9 pages. I configured entry points to align with Act III if I insanely go in that direction. Who am I kidding... 

Some thoughts...

Wandering Monsters are built in. That's right, on the main d20 "Periodic Check Table" a roll of 20 results in a wandering monster, not a check, an actual random monster right then and there. So, I put an X on the map, always in a corridor. Sometimes they occur in bunches. So, what if wandering monsters were always handled this way, and, is that a repeated occurrence or just a one time thing? Just thinking out loud; one time occurrence is obvious to me, unless something (a glyph?) is spawning creatures.

Stairs... come up plenty of times, but there's no way I'm doing levels below this monstrosity. So, I simply put stairs in the corridor -- almost always going down. Combined with the fact that new passages go under already drawn ones, the farther out you go, the deeper underground you are. It's shaped like an underground hill. This could be how danger (dungeon levels) is measured. Center page -- dungeon levels 1 and 2; 8 pages surrounding the center page -- dungeon levels 3 and 4; 16 pages surrounding that -- dungeon levels 5 and 6, etc. So danger equals distance from the center as opposed to levels straight down. 

Tricks/Traps come up as often as stairs and such; all in corridors. I've never been a fan of hallway traps because they're punitive and make the game an unfun slog. The players have no defense other than to check every 10' of the place. So whatever these turn out to be, there must be clues.

Special passageways... Rivers, caverns, chasms, streams, all come up periodically, but I've avoided all so far. I have a certain look in mind -- the cellar of Castle Dracula, complete with arched columns, vaulted ceilings, and at times, unfinished floors. I may add subterranean canals at some point, but I'll be damned if I taint this place with caverns.

After a few weeks, all 9 pages are nearly complete (much more complete than the pic I posted above) and it has a shit-ton of passages bleeding off in every possible direction. This implies a larger ring of 16 new pages for a total of 25. I would love to keep going until all natural dead-ends are met, but this could become comically large. So, is it now just a work of art? A curiosity? The odds of it stopping on its own are astronomically low. I wonder, what is the largest dungeon ever made using these tables? This is probably unknowable.
And then you must stock it!


Your mind would never imagine what these tables create.

Gary Gygax was a genius.

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on July 11, 1985.

Arak Son of Thunder #50: We arrive at the long ago announced final issue of the series as Arak and friends part ways from their more recent allies from the Middle East, and head ever eastward on a Chinese ship. Machinations of the Serpent see them barely making it to Japan, where they are attacked by the Ezo people under the command of an oni. Arak drives off the demon, sending the Ezo running too, and putting Arak and friends in the good graces of the local lord. The relationship sours, however, when Arak refuses to exterminate to Ezo for him. As Arak leaves, he frees an Ezo prisoner, who leads the group to his village. The Ezo aren't on the demon's side at all, but under his thumb. They want to escape to another island, free from the Japanese and the demon. Arak and friends slay the oni and get the lord to agree to giving safe passage to the Ezo.
Arak and Maligigi reveal that they have seen in visions that Charlemagne has now been made Emperor of the Romans. Valda realizes she must return to her king. Arak and Satyricus set out in a smaller boat to the Americas, but Maligigi is sure he and Valda will see them again.
This is the end of their story, though. Aside from some cameos, Arak and friends haven't appeared in the post-Crisis DCU. At 50 issues, Arak had the second longest run of any Sword & Sorcery character not based on a Robert E. Howard property in American comics.

Amethyst #11: Nice cover here by Cullins and Tanghal. Cohn and Colon/Kesel have Topaz and Turquoise reveal their love to Amethyst. Feeling betrayed, Amethyst decides to quit Gemworld to just live as Amy Winston on Earth. Gemworld isn't out of danger, though. Odd crystal formations are emerging, and one in the form of a serpent recruits Sardonyx for some evil scheme.
Things aren't so great on Earth, either. Amy's friend Rita is now Carnelian's accomplice in luring her father to his home to be a sacrifice for some dark ritual using the power of Dark Opal's broach. Meanwhile, in the Winston household's domestic drama, it seems like Herb's dissatisfaction with married life with an adopted kid who's also the savior of a fantasy world may be heading to an affair with one of his students from Hudson University.

Arion, Lord of Atlantis Special #1: The promised final issue of the series became a special instead. Kupperberg and Duursema seem like they're stuffing in every potential plot element they had thought of in this one issue. Atlantis is attacked by sub-men, alien invaders arrive, and jackal-headed S'net launches another assault. All of these forces manipulated and abetted by the evil god, Chaon. It's a lot for one issue, and it crowds out any significant focus on the characters, except that we do get to see Mara in her new relationship with the musician who also has an unusual ability: the power to manifest wings. 
In the end, the alien invasion is turned back after the revelation that they had their origins in expeditions from Atlantis millennia ago. Their ship is driven into the sun by one of their leaders sympathetic to the Atlantean cause so they won't be returning. S'Net is lost in space, and the sub-men have allied with the Atlanteans against their common foes. 
In Arion's fight with Chaon, though, the demon unleashes a blast sends seismic shudders through the land.  Arion banishes Chaon, but Atlantis is doomed. Arion, Chian, Wyynde, and many Atlantean refugees escape in ships, but their great city is no more. This is also the last appearance of Arion and his supporting cast in the pre-Crisis universe. Arion will show up in the post-Crisis world, mostly as a background element, though he will get another series in 1992 where he takes up residence in modern day New York.

Batman #389: Thanks to the Crisis (and Moench and Mandrake) there are red skies over Gotham. That's got Bruce thinking about his love life. He goes to the gym where Vicki is always working out to end things for good, but she thinks he's trying to win her back and storms off. Catwoman is back in town, tracking down the person killing wayward members of the False Face Society, and Batman meets with her to let her down easy, too. This attempt goes a bit better, but she declines to give up her vigilantism. Meanwhile, Jason is feeling the lack of a mother, so when a disappearance Bullock is working suggests Nocturna is back in town, he goes to the observatory to find her. Apparently, she's the one leading the False Face Society. Though no one knows it, Night Slayer is the one killing the Society members, with Nocturna is final goal. 

G.I. Combat #280: In the first Haunted Tank story by Kanigher and Glanzman, Stuart's Raiders draw cards to see who will go on a solo suicide mission to destroy the secret hangar for Germany's new jets, but even after Jeb "wins," his men won't let him go it alone. The second is a solo Rick story where he's attending a carnival with a woman when the Germans attack. Rick takes a shot from the top of a roller coaster to take out a fighter pilot.
In the Mercenaries story by Kanigher and Catan, the trio steals back a convoy of food relief for the Ethiopian famine from a hijacker chief, Nakamti. 
The two nonserial stories are both by Kanigher. The first, with art by Cruz, has an American G.I. and former championship skier besting the Chinese and an avalanche to complete his mission. The second has art by Catan as his about a paratrooper unlucky enough to get his chute caught on the wing of a German fighter plane, but lucky enough to make it out alive. 

Justice League of America Annual #3: Mishkin and Hoberg/Gustovich give us the ending of the pre-Crisis Red Tornado. It seems to me impossible to square the early events depicted here with the version of them in COIE #8 (though Wikipedia makes an effort). Here, Red is conscious and alone at the JLA station as he uses equipment there to test his powers, seeking to find out what the Anti-Monitor's cryptic comments meant about their being more to him. This leads to him exploding and sending the damaged station falling on to the Earth. The disaster is responded to by the new Justice League and several of the old members including Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Black Canary. 
Meanwhile, unusual weather patterns are starting up, and members of the JLA discover it isn't due to the Crisis but an experimental weather manipulation station that has mysteriously gone out of control. Red Tornado's lady friend, Kathy, is contact by Red through a TV set and other electronic devices. He asks her to meet him at the golden gate bridge.
It turns out Red Tornado has survived, he's again in the form of the living tornado, the Tornado Champion. Now viewing himself as a force of nature, he looks with a new-found horror at the ecological devastation humanity had wreaked on Earth. He decides to destroy civilization and battles the heroes to do just that. Finally, Kathy gets through to him, and he leaves the Earth to go elsewhere in the universe.

Legion of Super-Heroes #16: Levitz and Lightle/Smith still have Brainiac 5 moping over the death of Supergirl. If "moping" seems a dismissive description of grief over the death of a loved one, well, that's weirdly exactly how the narrative treats it. Brainiac is drawn to look like a sad sack, and a lot of other characters question why he's so upset when her death had occurred a long time ago and was a matter of the historical record. It seems the opposite of what you would want to do in a story, particularly when Crisis spent so much time trying to make her death impactful. I assume Levitz was trying to drive home that this is the future, and the past had been written, but that only draws attention to the fact that it clearly isn't, and it also seems to contradict the idea of Crisis as a sort of meta-temporal occurrence. Otherwise, to everyone but poor Anthro, maybe, the Crisis is to some extent "in the past."
Interestingly, the DCU fandom wiki argues Brainiac 5 is glum about the 1000 anniversary of Supergirl's Pre-Crisis death. It points out her death is not mysterious in this story--unlike a number of other Crisis-related events --and further notes Crisis isn't mentioned in this issue, nor does it carry a Crisis banner. Given, however, we saw Brainiac 5 grieving Supergirl in COIE #8, I'm not persuaded, but it is interesting.
Beyond, that a lot of Legionnaires attend the baptism of Graym, Lighting Lad's and Saturn Girl's infant. The new members also go on their first solo case to take down some bombers, which proves more complicated and mysterious than anticipated.

Omega Men #32: Klein and guest artist Spiegle do a fill-in issue where Felicity returns to Karna and finds work as a bar dancer, only to lose that job due to the lack of titillation in her dance. She meets a scarred face human named Mung who helps her get more work and gives her some dance pointers. In the background of all this, the cops are hunting for a serial killer who they believe to be a "regressor," a Karnan who can turn into a big cat like Tigorr. The story seems to signal that Mung is the killer, and he certainly tries to kill Felicity after revealing himself to be the bounty hunter Bedlam we saw previously. Felicity manages to best him and the cops take him away. Still, the issue ends with some ambiguity: Was Mung the killer? The only other possibility is that Felicity is secretly a regressor, but I'm not sure what Klein intended. 
Star Trek #20: Laurie Sutton scripts with Tom Sutton and Villagran on art for this Sulu solo story. Sulu attends a family wedding where a clan cousin he was romantically involved with in his youth is marrying a son of a rival clan in the un-Trekian giant robot business. It turns out the young man hasn't given up the feud, it ends as these things must: Sulu and the guy fight, each piloting a giant robot.

Super Powers #3: Kupperberg and Kirby/Theakston send Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Dr. Fate to Easter Island, probably so Kirby can again illustrate the Maoi, which he has done more than once before. Like in those stories the statues turn out to be aliens, but the primary menace here is Kirby's redesigned Mantis. The grateful Easter Islanders erect busts of the heroes, but unfortunately Green Lantern feels they have to be destroyed, which could be construed as "destroying evidence."

Superman #413: Bates and Swan/Williamson get to the end of the this "Clark Kent--Fired!" storyline. Luthor, already having Supes doubting his sanity, moves to his endgame. It comes at a particularly bad time, too, because Clark has been invited to a dinner, unaware that it's a big to-do in his honor put in by his friends and colleagues. Luthor's devices convince Superman that the Earth is dematerializing around him. Lex plans to trap him in this simulated reality of defeat forever, but his super-hearing (I guess) picks up all his friends and co-workers mentioning Clark Kent. Their calls focus him on the real world, allowing him to pull out of Lex's machine. As he fights with the villain, though, Lex is pulled away by some force. From Crisis, we know that's Brainiac, but it's mysterious here.
Superman attends the dinner and gives Clark's regrets but clears his good name by saying his previous reporting was all part of a plan to catch Luthor.

 In Dave Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire series (Volumes I–III and The Arduin Adventure), random treasure generation subverts standard fantasy tropes. Hargrave mixed high fantasy with sci-fi, cosmic horror, and weird fiction. This blog post picks right up from Integrating Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) with the legendary, chaotic, and maximum-gonzo DNA of Dave Hargrave's Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 C.L. Moore’s Northwest of Earth collection—featuring her iconic space-faring rogue Northwest Smith—blends planetary romance, cosmic horror, dark decadence, and raygun pulp. In Moore’s 1930s Solar System, Mars is a dry wasteland of ancient dead gods, Venus is a sultry jungle ringed with sinister matriarchal fortresses, and Jupiter’s moons hide ethereal siren-entities. This picks rightNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Art by Jeff Easley
A lot has been written about the "Myth of the Frontier" underpinnings of D&D, and the games perhaps greater homology to Westerns than traditional fantasy in many ways. Interestingly, despite that clear element of the game's core assumptions, when we look at published D&D settings, we don't really see a frontier and expansion setup.

The implied setting of D&D, as a number of writers have pointed out, can also be said to be post-apocalyptic. That often conjures images of science fantasy writers from Appendix N, but of applies to in the literal sense if not the generic sense to the Hyborian Age of Conan and the 3rd Age of Middle Earth. Materially greater and in some ways more advanced civilizations must precede the current one for there to be so much wealth and magic to be looted in old ruins.

A post-apocalyptic setting allows the frontier to be closer at hand, and indeed really sort of obscures it even being a frontier, as no discernable border but instead the distance between "civilized points." Connecting these dots seems more reclamation than expansion.

That works, but in D&D settings like Greyhawk, Krynn, and the Forgotten Realms, the apocalypse is remote enough so that the current civilization doesn't seem post-apocalyptic, at least no more than the High Middle Ages seems to us recovering from the fall of Rome.

Yet, Greyhawk, for all its map full of named regions, heraldry, and rulers with elaborate titles, is really empty. Some of this exists to facilitate the desired game play, sure, but that's the Doylist explanation. I like the more Watsonian explanations of humanoid and demihuman groups that are not adequately censused coupled with events that have led to a decline in population.

As Chris Kutalik and other commentors suggested in his blog series of years ago, I think Greyhawk is best analogized not to some science fantasy post-apocalypse but to historical eras like the "Dark Ages" (or early Middle Ages) after the collapse of Rome, or the plague, famine and war riven period of the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.

In many ways, I think, Greyhawk reads better as a setting where the apocalypse (or at least an apocalypse) is not the remote past but happening now or relatively recently. This isn't so much a total destruction kind of apocalypse but a "civilization is dealt a blow" sort of one. This allows for the breadth and complexity of social structures described in Greyhawk, but also for the population numbers and available real estate for enterprising adventures to carve out something for themselves. 

It's "points of light" to use the modern descriptor, but not (like so many of those settings) a rather static period, but one where there are still roving bands of invaders (humanoids, monsters, or armies of other human nations) and isolated communities that must either grow larger and more resilient or be wiped out. I should add, There's no one way the communities have approach this problem to survive. Orcs settling down to live in some sort of peace is potentially just as possible as driving them out and killing them.

I think this sort of implied framing could be fun to lean into. D&D settings need more Random Calamitous Event Tables and societies in flux (like we see in some epic fantasy like A Song of Ice and Fire). Christopher Buehlman's historical horror novel Between Two Fires and his fantasy series beginning with the Blacktongue Thief where human civilization is still dealing with the fallout from a disastrous (and still simmering) war with goblinkind are great inspirations, as well.

 Here is a d100 Wilderness Random Encounter Table tailored specifically for a Sword & Sorcery campaign using Castles & Crusades. This blog post picks right up from OSR Sword & Sorcery Adventure Fodder - d100 Treasure Table tailored for the Tower of the Serpent Horde, fully compatible with Castles & Crusades (and most classic OSR systems)In true Sword & Sorcery Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 In Decaying Orbit—the atmospheric sci-fi horror tabletop RPG focused on exploring a doomed orbital facility and uncovering lost memories—The Red Room serves as one of the station’s most ominous, high-tension focal points. This blog post picks right up North West of Earth By C.L. Moore - Orbital Decay (MicroRed version) From The Red Room & The New Flesh Rpg - Expanding The Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Green Martians (Tharks, Warhoons, and independent hordes) are the terror of the dry sea beds. Standing 10 to 12 feet tall with four arms, tusks, and an innately warlike culture, their encounters should range from lone honor-bound duelists to terrifying clan migrations capable of leveling a city-state. This entry picks right up from Building The Red Planet Empire - Mixing Warriors of Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By Peter Jewicz
Mellow Golem Games
"OSR"
Level 5?

This twelve page adventure uses about three pages to describe four rooms in a hag lair. It sufferers from the generic/universal curse and relies on tables for a substantial portion of the adventure. Abstracted content with little specificity to help bring it alive. 

The legend of the beast is persistent in these parts, a terrible force that dwells deep in the swamp and strikes fear into the hearts of those who live nearby. Little do they know, the beast is but a pawn, for something far more sinister lurks within the bowls of the swamp.

Ah, the generic/universal adventure. They seldom fail to not disappoint, even when statted for “OSR”, as this one is. There is something about them that makes a designer seemingly fearful of providing anything concrete to it. The designer wanted an adventure in which the party shows up to a village on the edge of a swamp. Fearful and superstitious locals. Talk of The Beast, everywhere, the cause of all ills. And then a journey through a swamp, full of dread, before finally arriving at the beasts lair, only to find out Muhahahahaha! The beast is the pet of a swamp hag! 

Instead, we get little of that.

Adventure writing can be hard. As a designer you have to get out of your head what you are imagining and get that down on paper so that when someone reads it they can get close to what you intended. We get what the designer wanted here because they out right tell us “To get the full effect for this mini-adventure, make sure to play up the townsfolk’s fear of the beast.” That is, in principle, great! You want a town that seems immersive to that point. The adventure designer needs to help bring that about. This doesn’t do that. The village is quite minimal, just one line or so about the town being on stilts and moldy. That’s fine, but, what isn’t fine is the lack of the The Best present in their ramblings. Or any rambling at all. We might look to the rumors table, but all we get is abstracted information like “1 The swamp has been especially active lately.” or that the swamp spirits are angry. There’s nothing much here at all about The Beast. I love that it’s called The Beast, but there’s nothing more. None of its misdeeds or lame calves or anything. The designer needs to bring an adventure alive through specificity for things like this. Yes, the DMs job is to run with it and expand on it but you have to give them SOMETHING to work with. 

Then we get to the swamp. This also is abstracted away. Just roll on a page full of random tables. “3 A large depression that collects rainwater.” or a smell that “A salty taste, similar to being near an ocean.”  That’s what you have to work with here; it’s totally abstracted away. There IS an encounter table, or single line entries or so, and it does show some decent things in it. “A series of stick figures are attached to the trees. Until they are destroyed, those traversing this area of the swamp walk in circles always arriving back at the figures.” That’s creepy as all fuck. And it deserves more than a line on a d12 encounter table. The swamp needed to be fixed encounters, or a pointcrawl or something, with the entries worked to bring them to life. 

The lair, proper, is four rooms. You get The Beast room, a Catoblepas, and then a potion room. In the potion room you get told EXPLICITLY how to make a potion, by a journal, that gets you through a bramble corridor. Then you hit, surprise, Lareth the Beautiful! Err a swamp hag. No hints of a hag up to this point at all. It’s all wasted. 

Make the town afraid. Make the swamp a real area and bring life to the best of the encounters on the table. Hint at creepy things to foreshadow the hag. 

Tables ruin adventures. Yes, old school uses tables and randomness, but not to create the entire adventure from. 

This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. You get to see the “village” and the “swamp”, or at least the dressing for it. The preview should have shown a bit more of the adventure, a lair page, for example. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/571424/lair-of-the-swamp-beast?1892600

 Here is a full d100 Treasure Table tailored for the Tower of the Serpent Horde, fully compatible with Castles & Crusades (and most classic OSR systems). This post picks right up from A d100 Abomination and Undead Sword & Sorcery Random Encounter Table for Castles & Crusades rpgIn true Sword & Sorcery fashion, the hoard favors ancient relics, dark alchemical compounds, Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Another way of recasting different groups of elves I've thought about is to draw inspiration from the wuxia tradition with its various kung-fu sects/schools/cults. Wikipedia has a nice (though I'm sure incomplete) list by author of these.

Though, I'm not opposed to kung-fu elves, mind you, perhaps in the case of elves, these would be based around a particular school or style of magic? They could be based on the elements or maybe the Classical Planets. They would presumably each be centered in a particular locale, probably remote from wider civilization.

Using this approach, different types of elves would have less physical or temperamental differences, but perhaps more philosophical ones. There might be rivalries between them. Since it's not an ethnicity but an allegiance, elves could move from one to the other, though perhaps not without some penalty.

I think this approach also has the benefit of making elven subtypes less background and more factions to interact with in gameplay.

 Adapting Vampire Hunter D into the Cepheus Engine (a 2D6 2D6-based open-tabletop sci-fi RPG system) is a natural fit. Hideyuki Kikuchi’s world combines far-future post-apocalyptic technology, bio-engineering, cybernetics, and gothic horror—the exact intersection of Cepheus Engine’s high-tech sci-fi rules and grit.

 Created by famed German author Karl May in the late 19th century, Old Shatterhand (the alter-ego of Karl, a German surveyor turned wild-west legend) is one of the most famous European pulp heroes of all time. Known for his superhuman punching power—capable of knocking out a man or a horse with a single blow to the temple (hence his name)—he is a polymath, master marksman, tracker, and a Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were on stands in the week of August 1, 1985. 

Crisis on Infinite Earths #8: After his fight with Supergirl, The Anti-Monitor makes it back to his base and adopts a new look before deciding to head for Qward where his "plan B" is being constructed: an anti-matter cannon. Psycho-Pirate and Flash have no choice but to accompany him.
Meanwhile in the 20th Century, some heroes are gathered in the old JLA satellite with T.O. Morrow to try to repair Red Tornado. Atom is investigating inside Red when he sees something activating. The heroes scramble to safety as the android explodes. Blue Devil is knock through a portal to the Vega System, and Firehawk is forced to make herself a new costume.
In the 30th Century, the Legionnaires monitor the 5 remaining Earths. Brainiac 5 frantically looks for a means to save them, while refusing to mentally acknowledge Supergirl's death.
On Qward, the Flash breaks free and takes Psycho-Pirate captive. He threatens to kil him and forces the villain to manipulate the Thunderers into attacking the Anti-Monitor. With that distraction, the Flash sabotages the energy core of the cannon. Running faster than he has every run before, he turns the energy back on itself. The cost is his own physical integrity, as he painfiully begins to disintegrate. He mentally says goodbye to his friends and family (mentioning Fiona who was forgotten in his comic by the end!) and feels himself slip back in time as he dies. He tries to warn Batman and the Joker, before he is gone leaving only his ring and costume. Unlikely Supergirl, none of the other heroes are aware of his passing or his sacrifice.
I feel like Crisis is improving in this second half. The first six issues seem mostly putting the pieces in place and establishing the stakes. There is still more than a little "just go with it" with Wolfman's plotting, but it's an engaging read.

Blue Devil Annual #1: This is called Blue Devil Summer Fun in the monthly checklists published in the issues. I feel like this issue was the real highwater mark for Blue Devil. My brother and I read it and re-read it as kids. I'm happy to say, I feel like the work done here by Mishkin/Cohn and Cullins/Martin holds up. Thanks to Wayne bringing back a crystal ball-like egg from Ile Du Diable and stashing it in Dan's workshop, Blue Devil is drawn into a battle with Felix Faust which has already entangled several occult and weird guest stars: the Creeper, Man-Bat, Madame Xanadu, Phantom Stranger, Etrigan, and ultimately Black Orchid. The heroes fail to stop all the imps that hatch from the egg from reaching a birthing pit, despite Dan chasing them with a butterfly net, and Etrigan gobbling up everyone he can find. The imp is transformed into a duplicate of Nebiros made of sand. The heroes manage to pull him apart, but the battle is only over when Phantom Stranger sucker punches Faust.
The issue is Blue Devil at its best: an action-comedy romp. One of my favorite bits is Xanadu and the Stranger at various points each telling conflicting versions of the origin of Black Orchid. Xanadu's tale is a pastiche of Daredevil's origin, while the Stranger's is a pastiche of Spider-Man's. Mishkin/Cohn also have a lot of fun with Etrigan's rhyming commentary.
It's a shame the series wasn't consistently this good, though its humorous approach was probably not what the majority of comic readers wanted in 1985. 

DC Comics Presents #87: Maggin and Swan/Williamson introduce the last Superboy of the pre-Crisis universe, the Superboy of Earth-Prime. Superman is mourning the loss of Supergirl, presenting an opportunity for the Superman Revenge Squad. They send him to an alternate Earth. Shortly after his arrival, the last son of Krypton of that Earth begins to manifest his Kryptonian powers. Superman introduces himself and the starts coaching the boy on his powers. They work together to repel an alien invasion. After that, they work to return Superman to Earth-1 via the alien's technology, but as soon as Superman's through, he's again ambushed by the Revenge Squad.
The backup story tells the origin of Superboy Prime. In this universe, Clark Kent and Superman are well-known from comics and media, but there is still a real Krypton and Jor-El, and this one has developed a teleportation device. Due events, only the infant Kal-El is sent to Earth where he is adopted by Jerry and Naomi Kent. They name the baby Clark, after Naomi's maiden name, realizing they have named him for a comic book character. On this Earth, Clark Kent grows up with super-powers.

Fury of Firestorm #41: Kayanan's back on art, and we get a Crisis crossover. Like a lot of these, it brings Firestorm up to where we see him in Crisis #1. Ronnie and Stein have move to Pittsburgh and Vandermeer College. Doreen and Cliff Carmichael are here, too, so Ronnie has similar social dynamics to before. Harbinger arrives to recruit Firestorm, but her job is complicated by Psycho-Pirate who she brought with her. His emotional manipulation of Stein causes Firestorm to fight at first.

Hex #3: Fleisher and Texiera/Garzoin don't give Hex a minute to catch his breath. He flees Borsten's minions through the desert, them gets set upon by punks looking to rob him when he stops in a town to wonder at the populace all hallucinating from some drug. He's rescued by a guy in an aircraft that offers him a job as his muscle, but then he turns out that guy is the dealer pushing the drug by aerosolizing it in an area and getting people addicted, before starting to charge. Hex objects to all this, the two fight, and the pusher falls from the aircraft.
Meanwhile, Borsten's under pressure by corporate types to deliver the Wild West gunfight he promised, as they're tired of watching kidnapped World War I soldiers fight it out. He yells at his minions to get him Hex so he can save face. The pressure must be getting to the old guy, as he again has to rushed to the rejuvenation tanks. 

Justice League of America #244: Conway and Staton/Machlan deliver a different perspective on the last few pages of last Infinity, Inc.issue. The JLA members that escaped the assault last issue regroup in the satellite then go to Earth-Two to enlist the JSA for help. Meanwhile, the Infinitors begin to suspect Heywood and Mekanique mislead them just in time for the JSA/JLA team to arrive. Mekanique gets away, but Steel and Commander Steel get a one-on-one combat, which Steel wins.

Outsiders #1: I bought this back in '85. I seemed special with the metallic ink on the cover. Barr and Aparo present a direct sale only book in the style of New Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes. Like those comics, there's a time jump between this issue and the concurrently published Batman and the Outsiders. The Outsiders are in L.A., they have a new member, Looker, and they are no longer partnered with Batman. They make a reference to "bad blood," but that's as much as we get.
The team is undercover, guarding the controversial opening of a nuclear power plant. They are unprepared for a group that acts and talks like a mid-century TV family that breaks into the core and seems to absorb radiation, the Nuclear Family. The Family turns out to be androids. The Outsiders let them go with a disguised Looker in the place of Mom to trace them to their base. She gives herself away, though, when she gasps in horror at their radiation-scared creator's plan to cause a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles. 

Vigilante #23: Cool Smith/Maygar cover. Kupperberg and Smith/Mitchell pick up the story as Judge Chase is heading into the courtroom. In flashback, we find out Marcia noped out of his craziness. With that and the faux Vigilante still out there, Chase is a wreck. His first case doesn't help because it's exactly the sort of thing he and so many other 80s vigilantes are always going on about: a drug smuggler gets off on a "technicality." The Killer Vigilante gets the smug lawyer that got him off, though, and unfortunately a young woman he is partying with. Meanwhile, the Electrocutioner reappears, doing his own killer vigilante thing. Marcia goes to a therapist to seek advice for how to help Adrian, spilling his identity, though attempting to conceal his name.

By Gordy Higgens
Self Published
OSE
Levels 4-6

The ‘Toymaker’ has gone missing – and nobility across the realm are scrambling to get their hands on his highly sought-after dolls. Hauntingly beautiful, and scarily well made.

His workshop is hidden, deep within the ‘Whispering Woods’. A dark and desolate forest, that locals warn all who dare enter, never return… that is, all except the Toymaker. To find his workshop, you must navigate the pitch black wood, haunted by imprisoned demons, zealous lumberjack wardens, cursed werewolves, possessed dolls, an entitled elf prince and a gaggle of other monstrous horrors. The balance of power in the woods is shifting – will the evils that lay trapped here be released unto the world?

This 52 page adventure presents about thirteen hexes and a couple of dungeons with about thirty rooms total in a dark forest kind of fairytale vibe. Sinister plots abound while the party tries to navigate a lot of competing goals in an adventure built to run.

Ok, so, as I’m describing what’s going on I’m going to have to ask you put aside certain feelings you have. Like, when I say “toymaster” or “puppets.” I know we’ve all been indoctrinated to expect certain things from the use of those themes. I promise this one isn’t like those others. Also, I suspect that the cover art might be a bit offputting. The designer is also the artist, so, hey, sorry man! I think the interior art is fine but the cover, along with the title “master of puppets” both sort of lean in to some tonal and historical implications that we are ALL bad people for having but which are true nonetheless.

Let’s think of a dark forest fairy tale vibe, maybe with a touch of farce in it, similar to Gone Fishin. And there’s a lot going on in this place. The Whispering Woods are a kind of dark forest/mirkwood stand in. All ancient and old and dark and foreboding with rumors of ancient battles and demons. And that the woods will whisper to you. There are woodcutters in the forest, who were once a kind of border guard keeping an eye on the woods but over time are perhaps a little financially focused. Especially since their funding was cut. Funding? Yes, the elves used to fund them. Let’s think a more Fey-like elf than a Tolkein-elf. ANyway, the border guards get their funding cut and now the mission has degenerated. Why does it need border guards it’s a literal demon forest, the trees are demons. Some old elf king defeated an invading demon army long ago and turned them all to trees. His magic axe, along with his bloody handprint, is embedded in a tree stump in the middle of the woods. Also, the trees can’t be cut down. Let’s think a super strong ironwood. In to this comes the Toymaker, who lives in the woods and makes wooden dolls. Expensive wooden dolls. That everyone just loves to get for their rich ass trust fund kids, like some fairy tale stanley cup. Yeah, he figured out a way to cut down the trees and makes dolls from them and lets the border force sell the remaining wood. Also the dolls whisper things, an attempt by the toymaker to embed his little chukies in to the nobility in order to influence them and gain power because, yeah, the demon from the tree is now in the doll, kind of, bound by the doll clothes. A couple of the dolls get loose and the toymaker goes looking for them, only to get killed by some werewolves in the forest. Werewolves that are turning the border guards and whose curse starts from a different fey-elf that was kicked out of elflandia, is 143 in line for the throne, and now wants to take over the wood and thinks that a perfect way to start that is kicking everyone out starting with the border guards. I think I just wrote a page on that shit? And theres more people/groups running around in there. A slightly different framing of the toymaker would have hit better, but it all kind of makes sense in an evil consequences kind of way and is not as “pretext” as the length of description might otherwise imply. These are just things following from others naturally, if pushed just a little. 

The hooks are the usual lame hired/dream shit, but the first one reads “A local Count wants the doll he ordered for his daughter’s birthday, but the Toymaker failed to make his delivery last week.” This one, I think, could have been pushed more and be the center of the adventure, much the way Gone Fishin was. A little expansion, a little more farce. And it’s gonna fit in well with people you meet in the forest, cavalier mercenaries who are sent by THEIR patrons to get toys for THEIR kids. A little push here in the writing, the absurdity, a tinge of evil, future chukie foreshadowing, insane offers, this would have lent a nice opening vibe that would frame the rest of the adventure instead of having just some genero stuff. 

There are a decent number of NPC’s in this. They are well organized with wants, needs, knows, offers to the party, along with short little descriptions like “Wild red hair. Always shouts, unable to speak at a reasonable volume” or “A nude, 2’ tall, crudely made wooden puppet. Exclaims ‘oh boy!’ frequently.” Perfect little nudges for the DM. You can talk to a lot of people and things, including a termite queen who can be particularly useful in a forest full of evil wooden chuckies. Not everyone is friendly, and a lot of the situations are tense and almost all can lead to some combat, but the talky talky option is there for a smartie partie. Think of the cavalier mercenaries, as an example of talking and fighting. 

Magic items are decent. “Royal Ceremonial Sword – +2 Elven Glass Blade, with gold leaf details. Used in knighting ceremonies. On a critical hit (19-20) it shatters, doing maximum damage. Repairs itself in 1d6 turns” and “Thief’s Lantern – Emits an area of light only visible to the wielder, and others that touch them.” These are nice little examples. Interesting effects to be sure. Useful, fun, unusual. They FEEL magical, especially the lantern. 

The entries start with a little overview that could be a read-aloud (In fucking italics! Don’t do that!) with certain words underlined and bolded (I’d do one or the other, not both) and those bolded/underlined words are then followed up with in their own sections with more details. A Sentence or two for each keeps them each to scan and run. Descriptions are not winning awards but are still pretty good. “A large open-cut marble quarry. Filling with water from a spring on the northern cliff face. A dull glow emanates from the loudly bubbling depths. Red handprints cover a nearby marble boulder. “ I don’t like “large”, but, not a bad little description and it hints at many things to follow up an examination on. 

There is A LOT to get in to trouble with in this, mostly from the party fucking around. Not in a Museum Tour kind of way but just the party doing normal shit. The locations can be fantastic, like a buried titanic statue you enter through a mouth, filled with stac/tags inside. Some of the wanderers seem rough, like 2d6 werewolves, but, hey, it’s OSR. You’re going to be doing a lot of freeing people, questioning them, and so on to get information you need to find the workshop, itself a twenty room dungeon. All without getting screwed over by the captives and/or people you meet along the way. Can you, having discovered termites, put together that this is an excellent resource to take advantage of in a wood themed adventure? If so, the designer was ready for you. Or, you can just stab them. How shall you navigate the mercenary knights? “Contract knights, mounted on warhorses. Equipped with expensive weapons and armour. Annoyed they couldn’t just pay someone beneath them to fulfill their quest “ Overemployment has always been a thing man.

This is $10.50 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages, showing rooms keys. Great preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/569545/the-master-of-puppets?1892600

 X13: Crown of Ancient Glory (1987), written by Stephen Bourne for TSR’s Classic Dungeons & Dragons (BECMI) line, stands out as one of the most structurally expansive modules of the Expert series. Billed as a transitional Expert/Companion adventure for level 7–10 characters, it moves away from simple dungeon crawling into a sweeping, multi-act political drama. When examining Crown Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Almost all my game designs include some form of "meta currency". Luck points. I got the idea originally from the TSR AD&D adventure module CB1: Conan Unchained. In that module, David "Zeb" Cook gives us a cool luck mechanic invented for the adventure to help mitigate the disparate outcomes of a typical AD&D game vs. what you see on the big screen (the module cover is literally a photo of Arnold in the Conan movie). In other words, Conan does amazing feats that are difficult to simulate if you're just playing the game straight.

Cook's idea was simple. Each PC has a set number of Luck Points that only the DM knows. You as a player have no idea who many points you have. Here's a screenshot of the text. 

I actually adore this. I've tried to use it a couple of times in one-shots with mixed results. Players need to embrace the idea and you gotta remind them to use it or they just keep playing normally.

Anyway, for Dead Wizards, there is Sand. Sand is the meta currency. Players know how much they have and they can spend it to auto-succeed in tasks or to take over narrative control of the game for a very short time (kinda like The Pool).

The auto-succeed is called a Sand Storm. The idea is the Judge rolls a secret d6 to see how many actions you can get away with. You start describing your actions. You stop when you feel like it, but once you exceed the number of actions rolled by the Judge... you're run out of luck. If you exceed it, your excess action not only fails but it fails in a terrible way. So it's a gamble.

 Created by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail in 1857, Rocambole is one of the most pivotal figures in French pulp fiction. He holds a unique place in literary history: starting as a ruthless, mercenary villain, his immense popularity led his creator to resurrect and reform him into the ultimate proto-superhero—a brooding, brilliant master of disguise who uses the tactics of the underworld to Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0