What is Thousand Suns?

I've rather surprisingly received several comments and emails about Thousand Suns and how it relates to Traveller. In retrospect, I suppose it's not really all that surprising, since I briefly touched on the game last week, in my post "Traveller and I." So, in the interests of answering some of the more basic questions people might have about Thousand Suns, I'm presenting this post. Because my goal here is to be as complete but succinct as possible, I won't be able to answer every possible question here. If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments to this post or drop me a line at the address found in the "About Me" tab above. 

Thousand Suns is a science fiction roleplaying game I wrote in 2007 and then first released in 2008. The current version of the game (the one available at the link above or the sidebar to the left) came out in 2011. It's not really a new edition so much as a revision of that original version. In addition to having a much better layout and graphic design, it's also better organized and (I hope) clearer, with lots more art. The 2011 edition has its flaws, but none of them have yet convinced me that it's time to do another revision of the game. 

I wrote Thousand Suns as an homage both to the imperial science fiction I've loved since my youth and to Traveller. By "imperial science fiction," I mean primarily literary SF from the '50s, '60s, and '70s that features mighty galactic empires and whose plots take inspiration from the 19th and early 20th century Age of Imperialism. Think authors like Anderson, Asimov, Piper, Pournelle, and the so forth and you'll have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. These are the authors and stories that captivated me as a child and with whom I still strongly associate science fiction. Thousand Suns was thus, from the very beginning, a self-indulgent project intended to make a science fiction RPG whose primary audience was me. 

Previously, Traveller had filled that role. Back in 2007, though, I had pretty burnt out on Traveller. I'd been playing it since the early 1980s and had thoroughly immersed myself in both its rules and its official Third Imperium setting. I'd also written professionally for the game, during both its Traveller: The New Era and GURPS Traveller incarnations. At that point, I thought I'd learned enough about Traveller that I could improve upon it, creating a better game – or at least one that better suited me and my personal preferences as both a referee and a player. I did say this was a self-indulgent project, did I not? 

Specifically, I wanted to create a generic science fiction rules set, which is to say, one without an official setting. Rather than being a game about any one setting, I wanted to present a toolbox that allowed the referee to create his own imperial science fiction setting. In this, I was inspired by Traveller itself, which, in its original 1977 release, was a game just like this. Over time, though, the Third Imperium increasingly came to dominate Traveller, so much so that, in my opinion, the game became about roleplaying within that setting rather than being a toolbox for creating one's own setting. 

Now, I love the Third Imperium and consider it my favorite fictional setting of all time. But, after almost fifty years of development, the Third Imperium isn't the most welcoming to newcomers to the game. That's why I intentionally designed Thousand Suns without a setting of its own. Instead, it has a "meta-setting" – a flexible outline of a setting, in which some details have been provided, along with lots of "blank spaces" for the referee to fill in himself according to the kind of setting he wishes for his campaign. For example, I don't specify whether the main human interstellar state is a federation or an empire. I simply call it "the Terran State" and provide lots of options on how to portray it, from an idealistic and democratic alliance to an ironfisted tyranny and everything in between. My goal, above all, was to make something that was both adaptable and accessible.

Rules-wise, Thousand Suns is pretty straightforward. Character generation is either by lifepath or point buy, depending on the wishes of the player. Characters are defined by five abilities ranked from 1 to 12 and skills similarly ranked. Skill tests use a 2D12 roll under a target number based on a combination of the relevant skill rank and an appropriate ability. The amount by which the roll is under that target number is important, because, in many cases it helps to determine the effect, like damage in combat. Rolls of 2 are dramatic successes, while rolls of 24 are dramatic failures, with each having its own effects. All in all, it's a pretty simple system, though, like all system, there are wrinkles here and there, once you get into the weeds of modifiers and edges cases. 

The rulebook (also available in Spanish) contains everything you'd ever need to play – character generation, sample aliens, combat rules, equipment, psi powers, starships, trade, world generation, etc. I tried very hard to make good use of all 272 pages of this 6"×9" book. I like to think I succeeded, though there is a companion book called Starships that expands upon the rules for space vehicles, including the starship construction system. There's also Five Stars, which presents another sample sector (one is included in the rulebook), a new alien race, and an adventure that involves both. I once had plans to produce a few other books to support the game, but a combination of factors, including my focus on this blog, distracted me from doing so.

Compared to Traveller, Thousand Suns is, I think, a bit simpler rules-wise, but not hugely so. It's also a bit more "modern" in its approach to science fiction, though, again, not hugely so. For example, there are cybernetics and robots in the rulebook, things Traveller has never really made much space for. I also included lots more advice on designing an imperial SF setting than Traveller ever did, because, as I said at the beginning of this post, I wanted Thousand Suns to be accessible to newcomers who'd never played this kind of science fiction roleplaying game before.

That said, I still call Thousand Suns "a love letter to Traveller," because it's very much informed by my decades of playing that game, which I still adore and consider one of the best RPGs ever designed. Thousand Suns is not a replacement for Traveller so much as another take on the same subject matter, one with slightly different emphases and esthetics reflective of my own idiosyncratic preferences. If you're a fan of Traveller, you might find Thousand Suns useful as a source of ideas, but its rules are sufficiently different that none of its content can be used without modification. 

This turned out to be a lot longer of a post than I intended and I'm not certain I said everything I wanted to say. If you have any questions I didn't answer about Thousand Suns, go ahead and leave a comment below or send me an email. I'll do my best to answer them. 

Retrospective: Monster Manuscript

The very first AD&D book I bought was the Monster Manual, which I acquired through a Sears catalog store using money my grandmother had given me for Christmas. This would have been in early 1980, probably January or February, not long after I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons. I absolutely adored that book and spent untold hours poring over its pages. Even now, I still consider the original Monster Manual one of the best books ever published for the game, if only for the way it expanded the implicit setting of AD&D, never mind the range of opponents available to the referee.

A big part of the genius of D&D is that it's built from modular elements, like character classes, spells, magic items, and, yes, monsters. Simply adding a new one here or there can change the game in all sorts of ways, keeping it fresh and opening up new avenues for exploration and development. As a kid, I was especially fond of seeing new monsters in the pages of Dragon, in adventure modules, and in expansion books such as the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II. My motto then was "you can never have too many monsters."

Consequently, I was always on the lookout for sources of new monsters to add to my AD&D campaign – and I wasn't very picky. Recently, a comment on my post about piercer miniatures unintentionally reminded me that Grenadier Models published a 32-page monster book in 1986, called the Monster Manuscript. According to multiple online sources, the book was given away for free to purchasers of a particular set of miniature figures produced by Grenadier. However, I'm fairly certain I got my copy in the mail simply because I was on the mailing list for the Grenadier Bulletin newsletter. On the other hand, this was nearly forty years ago, so it's quite possible I'm mistaken about that. 

Regardless, I owned a copy of the Monster Manuscript, which features a striking cover by Ray Rubin, depicting a night hag riding a helsteed, two of the monsters included in the book (more on that shortly). Rubin was the cofounder of Grenadier, along with Andrew Chernak, but he's probably best known for having painted most of the color box covers for Grenadier figures, going all the way back to its licensed AD&D sets, if not before. The Manuscript's text is attributed to Don Wellman, who was apparently a sculptor at the company, much like John Dennett, who did all the interior black and white art. 

Grenadier, you may recall, once held the license to produce official AD&D miniatures, a license they lost in 1982. In the aftermath of that loss, Grenadier rebranded their fantasy figures under the name Dragon Lords, many of which were identical to their old AD&D sculpts under new names. However, after a few years, the company wanted to create new sculpts of their monsters and, to promote that endeavor, they released the Monster Manuscript, which also became the name of the Dragon Lords sub-line devoted to fantasy creatures. All of the monsters included in the book thus had corresponding figures released for them over the course of 1986 and '87.

The introduction to the book (by Wellman) is mostly self-promotion about the game line, but it does include a section that I think is interesting from a historical point of view:

The creature descriptions and gaming stats included in the MONSTER MANUSCRIPT are my perspectives. They are provided as merely food for thought. If you like them the way I've presented them – great! If not, feel free to change them however you see fit; adapt them to your own fantasy world. I tend to believe that the word, "Official", is one which has been used too much in the gaming industry over the years. Imagination is what fantasy is a li about, so why place unnecessary restrictions on it? Fantasy and science fiction fans have to be some of the most creative and intelligent people anywhere, so utilize your abilities, don't be afraid to try something a little different just because it's not labeled "Official". If you've got a yearning for Lawful Good troll warriors, go for it!

It's hard not to look at this section as a dig at Gary Gygax/TSR and their emphasis on only using "official" products at the gaming table. Grenadier had probably suffered financially as a result of their having the AD&D license pulled, so I can hardly blame Wellman for a little bit of snark on the subject in his introduction.

Judging by their stats, the monsters included in the Monster Manuscript are clearly intended for use with Dungeons & Dragons, specifically AD&D. Here's an example of one of the entries. It's for a floating eye, a beholder knock-off:

As you can see, the entry is similar to what you'd find in the Monster Manual, but abbreviated in such a way as to avoid being too similar. To the best of my knowledge, TSR never objected to the content of the Monster Manuscript, so I assume Grenadier's change to the format was sufficient to avoid legal challenges. 

There are over 100 monsters in the book, many of them being what you'd expect – creatures from folklore and mythology. Others are, like the floating eye, non-union equivalents to AD&D monsters, often with names that are surprisingly close to their predecessors, like the "blinc dog," "ruster beast," and "owlbeast," to name a few. Likewise, Dennett's accompanying illustrations are frequently reminiscent of those found in the Monster Manual and elsewhere, leaving no question of what they're supposed to be in the minds of knowledgeable gamers. 

Where the Monster Manuscript differed, though, was in its descriptions. Many included little details that gave the monster an origin or context that I found imaginative or that included bits of world building. For example, many weird or hybrid animals are noted as having been tainted by Chaos, while others reference other planes and dimensions. None of it is exceptional stuff, but some of it's flavorful enough that I can still remember it. That's more than I can say of many other monster books I've read over the years and why I think back fondly on the Monster Manuscript even now.

Traveller Distinctives: Social Standing

This post is the start of a new series, Traveller Distinctives, in which I look at an aspect of Traveller's rules that I consider unique or otherwise distinctive, whether from the perspective of other roleplaying games generally or science fiction RPGs specifically. The series will be both irregular in frequency and in its subject matter. That is, I'll post new entries in it as often as I like and I won't be following any kind of clear program. This isn't a "cover to cover" series so much as a "things James finds distinct about the Traveller rules" series. Additionally, I should point out that I'll generally be sticking to the text of the original 1977 rules, with occasional references to the 1981 version.

To kick things off, I'm starting small: Social Standing. Social Standing (or SOC) is one of the six "basic characteristics" all characters possess, along with Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, and Education. While the first four have clear analogs in OD&D, as does their being six in number, SOC has no such antecedent. Indeed, I'm not sure of any other significant roleplaying games published by 1977 that includes something similar, but, as always, I'm happy to be corrected.

According to Book 1, SOC "notes the social class and level of society from which a character (and his family) come." A little later, in the section on naming a character, there's a subsection devoted to titles, which reads (italics mine):

A character with a Social Standing of 11 or greater may assume his family's hereditary title. The full range of titles is given in Book 3. For initial naming, a Social Standing of 11 allows the use of Sir, denoting hereditary knighthood; a Social Standing of 12 allows use of Baron, or prefixing von to the character's surname.

What's notable here is that Traveller associates Social Standing with nobility and hereditary nobility at that. The referenced section from Book 3 – which, intriguingly, is found in the chapter about encounters – elaborates on this a bit. 

Persons with social standing of 11 or greater are considered to be nobility, even in situations where nobility do not take an active part in local government. Nobility have hereditary titles and high standing in their home communities.  

The emphasis on "home communities" is interesting, as is the mention of "local government." This is, I think, evidence that, in 1977 Traveller at least, there's little to no notion of an immense, sector-spanning government like the Third Imperium. Instead, there are just scattered worlds or perhaps small multi-world groupings. The ranks of nobility are, as follows:

• 11 knight/dame
• 12 baron/baroness
• 13 marquis/marchioness
• 14 count/countess
• 15 duke/duchess

The list is an idiosyncratic one in that it ranks a count higher than a marquis, something not found in either the English or French systems of precedence with which I am familiar. Likewise, the pairing of the French marquis with the English marchioness is odd, but it's the future, so who cares? The text continues:

At the discretion of the referee, noble persons (especially of social standing 13 or higher) may have ancestral lands or fiefs, or they may have actual ruling power. 

This section is noteworthy, because a common knock against Traveller in my youth was that there was little to no explicit benefit to having a high SOC (and the title that went with it) after character generation. This was even true after the release of Citizens of the Imperium, which introduced an entire Noble career. In any case, what's obvious is that Traveller as written assumes a universe in which monarchy and aristocracy are still commonplace and effective – an egalitarian Star Trek future this is not!

Ranking above duke/duchess are two levels not reflected in social standing: prince/princess or king/queen are titles used by actual rulers of worlds. The title emperor/empress is used by the ruler of an empire of several worlds.

 Note "several worlds," not the thousands of the Third Imperium and other interstellar states of the later official GDW setting. Note, too, that the text states that a prince or king is an "actual ruler" of a world, again implying that space is full of governing monarchies of one sort or another.

The only other place where Social Standing plays an important role in Traveller is in resolving a character's prior service. Characters with SOC 9+ have an improved chance of gaining a commission in the Navy, while those with SOC 8+ have an improved chance of gaining a promotion in the Marines. This makes sense if the default assumption is that many, if not most, worlds have a hereditary aristocracy, since careers in the Navy and its subordinate service, the Marines, have been historically viewed as prestigious in similar historical societies on Earth. Likewise, Navy and Marines – along with the Army – can acquire improved SOC as part of mustering out, reflective no doubt of the esteem in which such services are held in such aristocratic societies.

What I find most noteworthy about social standing and the rules governing it in Traveller is how there is of it. Consider that SOC is one of only six characteristics possessed by all characters, suggesting that Marc Miller considered it as foundational to a character as Strength or Intelligence. Despite this, there's not much present in the text of 1977 Traveller (or, for that matter, 1981) to guide the player or referee in understanding how it's meant to be used or what it means for the implied universe of the game. Instead, we get only hints here and there. The later Third Imperium setting is more explicit, in that there's an emperor and archdukes and so forth, but, even then, how this works for titled player characters is left somewhat vague.

For me, though, SOC is a distinctive element of Traveller, something we don't see in any contemporary RPG, science fiction or otherwise. It's a big part of why I don't consider the base game truly "generic" without modification. Putting social standing (and the possibility of hereditary titles) on par with other characteristics has strong implications for the kinds of settings for which it was designed. I'll return to this thought in my upcoming post about jump drive, since there are a number of connections between these topics, as I'll explain.

REPOST: Conan of Cross Plains

Janus must be very fond of writers, for so many were born this month: J.R.R. Tolkien, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Merritt and, today, Robert Ervin Howard. Of them all, Howard is possibly unique in having created a character – Conan – who is a genuine pop cultural icon, his name recognized even by people with no prior connection to pulp fantasy. The irony is that that recognition often acts as an impediment to appreciating Howard's genius in having created him. Indeed, the popular conception of Conan bears only a passing resemblance to the character who first strode onto the pages of Weird Tales in December 1932.

It may sound fantastic to link the term "realism" with Conan; but as a matter of fact - his supernatural adventures aside - he is the most realistic character I ever evolved. He is simply a combination of a number of men I have known, and I think that's why he seemed to step full-grown into my consciousness when I wrote the first yarn of the series. Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.

--Robert E. Howard to Clark Ashton Smith (July 23, 1935)

It's a pity that this character, this amalgamation of so many real people Howard met in Depression era Texas, isn't the one with which so many are familiar today. He is, for my money, vastly more interesting than the dim, loincloth-wearing, stuffed mattress to be found in so many popular portrayals of the Cimmerian.

Of course, Howard himself has fared little better in the popular imagination than has his most famous creation. To the extent that anyone even knows any facts about the author's life, they're likely based on distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies, such as those L. Sprague de Camp peddled in Dark Valley Destiny. Fortunately, the last three decades have seen the rise of a critical re-evaluation of both REH and his literary output, finally allowing both to be judged on their own merits rather than through the lenses of men with axes to grind.

This is as it should be. Robert E. Howard was a man like any other. He had his vices as well as his virtues; there is no need more need to reduce discussions of him to mere hagiography than there is to ill-informed criticisms. But men, particularly artists, need to be understood in their proper context, historical as well as cultural. Until comparatively recently, Howard hasn't been given that chance. Like Conan, he's been reduced to a caricature, a laughable shadow of his full depth and complexity that illuminates little about either his life or his legacy.

As the quote above makes clear, Conan may have been a man of the Hyborian Age but he was born in Depression era Texas and, I think, is most fully understood within that context. This is equally true of Howard himself, as Mark Finn noted in Blood and Thunder, a much-needed biographical corrective to De Camp:

One cannot write about Robert E. Howard without writing about Texas. This is inevitable, and particularly so when discussing any aspect of Howard's biography. To ignore the presence of the Lone Star State in Robert E. Howard's life and writing invites, at the very least, a few wrongheaded conclusions, and at worst, abject character assassination. This doesn't keep people from plunging right in and getting it wrong every time.

It's often claimed that Howard led a tragic life but I'm not so sure that's true. If anything, he's had a far more tragic afterlife, for, despite of all the Herculean efforts made to elucidate his life and art, he is still so often remembered as "that writer who killed himself because he was upset about his mother's death." Couple that with the disservice done to his creations and it's a recipe for the frustration of anyone who reveres his memory, warts and all.

Yet, there is reason to hope the tide may eventually turn. Del Rey has done terrific work in bringing Howard's writings – and not just his tales of Conan – back into print. Better still, these are all Howard's writings, not the hackwork pastichery of others. In fact, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find those faux Conan stories on bookstore shelves. It's my hope that, at the very least, this will ensure that future readers will have a better chance to encounter the genuine articles than I did when I first sought out stories of the Cimmerian as a young man. Likewise, the facts of Howard's own life are also becoming more well known, at least among scholars and dedicated enthusiasts of fantasy. It may be some time before past falsehoods are cast aside for good but it's at least possible to imagine that now, whereas it was not even a few years ago.

Like the 119th birthday of Robert E. Howard, that's something worth celebrating.

Piercer Miniatures?

Today's post about "The Ecology of the Piercer" article got me wondering: have there ever been any miniatures of piercers? Though I've never been a big user of minis, I did own a fair number of Grenadier AD&D figures in my youth, some of which featured a goodly selection of the game's weirder monsters – and make no mistake: the pierce is weird. However, I can't recall any piercers among Grenadier's offerings, at least not those that I owned in the 1980s. Nor can I find any evidence online of any other manufacturers, official or otherwise, that produced a pierce model in those days. 

Apparently, WizKids produces one nowadays (pictured to the left). Looking at it, I suppose I've inadvertently explained why there haven't been any such miniatures before: what purpose would they serve? The intent behind piercers, assuming I can fathom the mind of Gary Gygax (or whoever it was that originally created it), is that its appearance is a surprise. Looking like an ordinary stalactite, no one is supposed to notice it until it attacks. Placing a miniature of it on the table would be a dead giveaway of its presence, thereby negating its one and only purpose. 

On the other hand, there have been a lot of odd Dungeons & Dragons miniatures over the years. I doubt the piercer would have been the oddest. 

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "The Ecology of the Piercer"

When issue #72 of Dragon (April 1983) was released, it contained, in addition to the usual assortment of not particularly funny April Fool's articles, a very short article – one page of text plus a one-page illustration – called "The Ecology of the Piercer." Written by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards, it had originally appeared in the pages of the UK fanzine Dragonlords. That in itself is pretty remarkable, as I cannot recall another Dragon article that was in fact a reprint of something that had appeared elsewhere (though I'm sure my readers will quickly point out many examples that falsify my memories). More remarkable, I think, is how modest an article "The Ecology of the Piercer" is and yet, it was the acorn from which a mighty oak would eventually grow.

The idea of monster ecology articles is now so well entrenched in the minds of long-time D&D players that it's almost unnecessary to discuss the actual contents of this seminal article. More to the point, "The Ecology of the Piercer" is, as I just noted, a very short article, written in the form of an address given by the wizard Pyrex to the Wizards Guild of Kabring, where he discusses the physiology and habits of the piercer. There are no game stats included with the article; instead it focuses on trying to make sense of one of the game's more bizarre creations. This the authors do by postulating that the piercer is a mollusk using a stalactite as protective covering/weapon in much the same way that a hermit crab does with seashells. It's a pretty simple idea but a clever one that goes a long way to lending plausibility to what would otherwise be just a goofy monster.

The response to "The Ecology of the Piercer" was very positive, so much so that nearly every issue of Dragon  that followed it for many years included an "Ecology of ..." article in its pages. These articles were foundational to the Silver Age, being sophisticated (or decadent, depending on one's point of view) outgrowths of Gygaxian naturalism. I think it worth noting, too, that the origin of this series was in the UK, where RuneQuest rivaled and may have even exceeded Dungeons & Dragons in popularity. Among RQ's many virtues was its dedication to creating and presenting fantastically plausible monsters, with 1982's Trollpak probably being the epitome of the genre. I suspect that Trollpak had an influence on "The Ecology of the Piercer," as evidenced by the illustration that accompanied the article. It showed a dissected piercer that reminded me, even then, of the famous illustration of a troll's innards I've discussed previously.

I liked the early "The Ecology of ..." articles more than the later ones, mostly because they were short and focused more on explaining away goofiness in a reasonable manner than in providing the definitive portrait of a particular monster's nature. They were thus much more easily "plug and play" than what came later, which increasingly seemed to rely on very specific presentations of iconic monsters, often to the point where those portrayals became canonical at the expense of earlier alternatives. But then that was one of the characteristics of the Silver Age and, judging from the popularity of these articles, it fed a real hunger many gamers – or at least Dragon readers – had.

REPOST: Forgotten Father

The tastes of one generation are not necessarily those of another and literature is no more exempt from the alienating power of time than any other form of art. Realizing this doesn't make it any less surprising when one encounters an artist wildly popular in his own day but largely unknown in the present. Such an artist was Abraham Merritt, who was born today in 1884. A journalist, editor, and writer, Merritt's short stories and novels were highly regarded before the Second World War. Among his ardent admirers was H.P. Lovecraft, who, in a letter to R.H. Barlow wrote of his having met the man in person:

I was extremely glad to meet Merritt in person, for I have admired his work for 15 years. He has certain defects — caused by catering to a popular audience — but for all that he is the most poignant and distinctive fantaïsiste now contributing to the pulps. As I mentioned some time ago — when you lent me the Mirage installment — he has a peculiar power of working up an atmosphere and investing a region with an aura of unholy dread.

HPL would later, along with Robert E. Howard, collaborate with Merritt on a round-robin story called "The Challenge from Beyond." It's not a particularly noteworthy piece, for any of the writers involved, but it's evidence that, once upon a time, Merritt was at least as highly esteemed as Lovecraft and Howard, two writers whose literary stars have risen since their lifetimes, in contrast to their older colleague.

Today, almost no one, including aficionados of fantasy and science fiction -- genres he helped to develop -- talks much about Merritt. I knew his name, of course, since Gary Gygax included him in Appendix N and often noted that he was one of his favorite fantasy authors. Despite this knowledge, I hadn't read much by Merritt until comparatively recently. Part of it is that his stories are frequently out of print. At least some of them are in the public domain, but, being a stodgy old traditionalist, I like books, meaning that, if I can't find a physical volume of an author's works, I often don't read them. Many older authors, such as H. Rider Haggard, for example, are readily available in inexpensive paperbacks, making them much easier to obtain by those uninterested in trolling used bookstores for obscure novels.

Even so, I don't think that fully explains why Merritt is so poorly known and appreciated in the 21st century. The real answer, I think, lies in his stories, which don't fall into neat, easily marketable categories. Whereas Lovecraft can be crudely called a "horror" writer and Howard a "fantasy" one, Merritt defies such facile classification. More often than not, his stories feature recognizably "pulp" heroes -- men of action and intelligence equally adept at problem-solving and fisticuffs -- but Merritt's style is ornate, even florid, marshaling a veritable army of adjectives, adverbs, and archaisms to describe scenes of remarkable power. Here's just one example from his Creep, Shadow, Creep in which he describes a sorcerer:

I saw that he was clothed in the same white robes. There was a broad belt either of black metal or ancient wood around his middle. There was a similar cincture around his breast. They were inlaid with symbolings of silver ... but who ever saw silver shift and change outline ... melt from this rune into another ... as these did? ... The servants had quenched their torches, for now the corposants had begun to glimmer over the standing stones. The witch lights, the lamps of the dead ... Glimmering, shifting orbs of gray phosphorescence of the grayness of the dead ... Now the buzzing began within the Cairn, rising higher and higher until it became a faint, sustained whispering.

It's not hard to see why Lovecraft was so enamored of Merritt's prose -- or why he accused him of "catering to a popular audience." Merritt's style is neither fish nor fowl, mixing many aspects of pulp literature into a unique elixir that's remarkably intoxicating. As Lovecraft notes above and, as I stated in my review of The Ship of Ishtar, Merritt is a master of atmosphere and setting a scene. He takes the time to describe the environment in which his fantastic tales of lost races and eldritch horrors occur and it's this tendency that truly set his stories apart from those of his contemporaries and successors. Moreso than most pulp writers, Merritt truly transports his readers into another world, using his prose to act as their eyes and ears.

I've still not read the entirety of Merritt's corpus and it may be some time before I do, but it's a project to which I am committed. Merritt's unusual style might not be for everyone. However, his ideas are without peer, which explains his great popularity in the years before World War II. I'm increasingly of the opinion that his stories could find an audience today if they were more readily available. I think he's no less accessible than Lovecraft and, given that his protagonists aren't bookish, mentally fragile antiquarians, they're probably more in line with popular tastes than those of the Old Gent. More than anything, what Merritt needs are some champions who'll do for him what others have done for Lovecraft and Howard: remind the current generation what past generations saw in these great artists.

Emperor of Dreams

On January 13 of this year, I commemorated, as I always do, the birthday of Clark Ashton Smith, whose most famous poem, "The Hashish-Eater" famously begins with the line, "Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams." I've long felt that it was an eminently fitting declaration to appear in a poem by CAS, as his literary work, whether poetry or prose, is indeed oneiric, filled with fantastic beings and vistas and eliciting feelings that are at once strange and familiar. Smith understood the language of dreams well and he used that language to remarkable effect. That's a skill I decidedly lack in my own writing and of which I've always been envious, which probably explains why I hold him in such high esteem.

One week later, January 20, would have been the 79th birthday of another master of the language of dreams, filmmaker David Lynch, who died on the 15th. I know the date of his birth only because of a very peculiar incident that happened to me in 2018. One morning, I woke up after a dream I'd had about meeting David Lynch, who was apparently waiting for me on a street corner. "Where are my suits?" he asked me. "Did you bring them to me?" When I told a friend I'd had this dream, he replied, "You know, today is Lynch's birthday."

Prior to my friend's informing me of this, I'm almost certain I didn't know this information, so it seemed oddly coincidental that I just happened to dream of Lynch on the morning of his birthday. I suspect I had this dream because I'd come across a story about him from the year before, when he'd set himself up in a director's chair at the side of the road on Hollywood Boulevard to campaign for Laura Dern to receive an Oscar. And he had a cow with him, because of course he did. In my dream, he didn't have a cow or a director's chair, but he was at a street corner. I feel like the connection is pretty obvious – at least that's what I told myself, since the alternative is to believe that there was some mystical significance to my dreaming of the man on the day of his birth.

I think the first David Lynch movie I ever saw was his 1984 adaptation of Dune, which I've always adored for its esthetics, if not necessarily anything else. Lynch hated every released version of the movie and even replaced his name with that of Alan Smithee on a couple of them. In college, I met some guys who were big film geeks who loved Lynch's work and, through them, saw Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, and Eraserhead. I found Eraserhead particularly arresting and have never watched it again, but I found the other two well made and compelling. Though I didn't realize it at the time, all of them, to varying degrees, possess dream-like (or nightmarish) qualities that set them apart from the more straightforward movies to which I was accustomed up till that point.

I don't think it was until Twin Peaks appeared on TV in 1990 that I encountered many other people familiar with Lynch's work. The show was, for a brief moment, a "water cooler show," as they used to say – everyone was watching it and talking about, both because it was so lovingly made and because it contained all sorts of elements that made people question exactly what they were actually watching. Because of network interference, Lynch couldn't make good on his vision for the show (and wouldn't until Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017), but he did release a movie prequel in 1992 that is both very good and very scary – and another movie I've never dared watch a second time. Unsurprisingly, Twin Peaks in all its forms gives pride of place to dreams and their importance.

I haven't seen all of Lynch's films, so I'm not sure I'd call myself a true devotee of the man and his works. That said, I found him fascinating. Every interview with him I've ever read or seen is remarkable. Odd though he was, there was a sincerity, an earnestness to him that I couldn't help but find admirable. There was nothing pretentious about him; what you saw was genuine. Everything he said and did was an authentic reflection of who he was and what he believed. It's hard not to like a guy like that, even if, as I said, a lot of what he actually said and did and believed was downright peculiar at times. 

Ultimately, though, the thing I loved about Lynch was that he clearly understood the language of dreams. I use the word "language" purposefully. Lynch's creative efforts, like dreams, are more deliberate than they seem. There's an underlying logic to them that, while not apparent at first, can eventually be deciphered, at least somewhat. To do that, though, you have to be willing to listen. You have to be patient and learn the vocabulary and the grammar and the syntax of the language of dreams. Do that and you might come to understand what he's talking about. 

Or, just like dreams, you might not. Sometimes, you have to be comfortable with not knowing, with mystery. Lynch never elaborated on his own work, no matter how often interviewers tried to get him to do so. He trusted his viewers to do their own work and figure it out for themselves, probably because, in many cases, he might not have fully figured it out himself. Great art, like dreams, sometimes comes without an easy explanation: it just is and that's OK. Not everything has to be easily explicable or reducible to a series of rational propositions. In fact, it's better that way.

For someone like me, who's always lived too much inside his own head, who's much too analytical and deductive, I need to be regularly reminded of this. That's likely why artists like Clark Ashton Smith and David Lynch so appeal to me: I recognize in them remedies to my own deficiencies. Their ready understanding of the language of dreams makes me at once envious and grateful – while the news of Lynch's death just makes me sad. 

Wherever you are, Mr Lynch, Godspeed.

"We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives the dream."

Your Safety is Our Proft Margin

As I wrote today's Retrospective post, I wanted to reference something from my Riphaeus Sector campaign, thinking I'd already posted about it earlier. However, a quick search through the archives of the blog turned up no evidence that I'd ever done so. And it f I'm mistaken about this, oh well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time!

During the campaign, the characters acted as covert agents for Imperial Naval Intelligence service of the Empire of Nagoya. They masked their activities by also operating as a genuine mercantile company they called Universal Exports. Here's a fun little graphic one of the players produced in reference to their activities. Since I'm a big fan of player-made materials like this, I thought it'd be worth sharing more widely. It's also a great memento of the campaign.

Retrospective: BeltStrike

Traveller was released in 1977 in a digest-sized box, mimicking the format of OD&D, published just three years earlier. During its first few years of existence, Game Designers' Workshop released several other similarly sized boxed sets to support the game, starting with Mayday in 1978. For a lot of people, myself included, Traveller is strongly associated with digest-sized books, so much so that many of the 'zines and licensed third party support released for the game were similarly sized. (Judges Guild's books were the primary exception to this.)

Beginning with The Traveller Book in 1982, GDW began a shift away from digest-sized books and toward more traditional 8½" × 11" books for the game. I'm not entirely sure why the company chose to do this, but, whatever the reason, there were soon no more digest-sized books to be had. The Traveller Adventure, the various alien modules, and even the Starter and Deluxe editions of the game were all published as standard-sized books – a size every subsequent version of Traveller has used up to the present day.

Around the same time, GDW released new versions of Mayday and Snapshot that made use of the larger size. These were the versions I owned, though I've long since lost and replaced them with the earlier digest-sized versions, because I'm silly that way. These games paved the way for additional boxed sets for use with Traveller, like Tarsus, which appeared in 1983. Then, in 1984, BeltStrike appeared in the same format – two 12-page, staple-bound booklets, four 4-page adventure folders, a fold-out map of Koenig's Rock, and some perforated cards containing the write-ups for a dozen pregenerated characters. Like most Traveller products, there's not much in the way of art beyond David Dietrick's box art.

Like Tarsus before it, BeltStrike devotes itself to the description of a single star system in the Spinward Marches, in this case the Bowman Belt, a planetoid belt located in the same subsector as Tarsus, District 268. As its name suggests, District 268 has not yet been fully incorporated into the Third Imperium, but is instead a colonial territory being developed in preparation for eventual inclusion within the empire. This gives its worlds, including the Bowman Belt, a distinctly "frontier" feel to them – which is saying something, as the Spinward Marches sector itself is something of a backwater sector located on the fringes of the Imperium. 

The first 12-page booklet is the Bowman System Reference Book. It lays out the basic facts of the Bowman system, as well as its major points of interest. There's also a map of both the entire system and of Bowman Prime (a gas giant) and its satellites, so referees and players alike have a good idea of where all the major astronomical bodies are located in relation to one another. Information about Bowman's history and place within the Marches takes up much of the booklet's page count, followed closely by library data and a key to Koenig's Rock, a planetoid settlement with a reputation for lawlessness and vice.

The second 12-page booklet is the Belter's Handbook. As its title suggests, it focuses on creating and playing belter (asteroid miner) characters. There's not only a full career for such characters (which had previously appeared in Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium), but also many practical details on asteroid mining, like the ins and outs of prospecting, claims and profits, encounters, and the effects of zero and low gravity. None of these details are exhaustive – the booklet is short, after all – but they're solid enough to provide the referee with sufficient guidance that he could pretty easily make use of them in his campaign. 

Finally, there are the four adventure folders – really just two double-sided pages – each of which presents a different situation that might involve the player characters within the Bowman system. The first one, "Lodes of Adventures," is really just an introduction to the system and its sights. The second, "On the Rock," takes place on Koenig's Rock and its shady inhabitants. Adventure three, "Claimjumpers," deals with fending off rival belters. Finally, there's "Archeology," which allows the characters to find a high-tech base of an alien civilization that's been lost in the belt for centuries. Like everything else in BeltStrike, the adventures are more sketches than fully fleshed out scenarios. While this is fairly typical for Traveller, this might prove frustrating for inexperienced referees.

In my youth, I wasn't a big fan of BeltStrike for precisely this reason. I felt there was too little information to fully exploit its potential. After all, asteroid belts are inherently interesting locales in a sci-fi setting and I simply didn't think the Bowman Belt was interesting as I had hoped it would be. Now, I look on it a little more charitably. I made good use of it during my Riphaeus Sector campaign by repurposing bits and pieces of it in my own non-Third Imperium setting. Both Koenig's Rock and the ancient alien base made great additions to the continuing adventures of the characters as they made their way across the sector. It's far from the best thing GDW ever released for Traveller, but I'm still fond of it (and it inspired me when I took my own stab at presenting an asteroid system for gaming).